Lost But Not Forgotten
by peacefulsands
Summary: Alec had been working hard with Max to create the new Transgenic Nation, so it was a surprise when he vanished without trace. With the Transgenics trapped inside Terminal City, how could they send out help to track him down and bring him home?
1. Prologue

**Title: Lost But Not Forgotten**

**Author: **peaceful_sands**  
><strong>**Rating: **NC-17

**Word Count**: 39,500+

**Fandom Crossover:** Dark Angel/The Losers(movie)

******Rated** : Mature.

**Warnings**: There are scenes of violence and torture associated with the capture of a kidnap victim and subsequent efforts to re-indoctrinate him.

**Summary** : Written for the Dark Angel Big Bang - crossover with The Losers - Alec had been working hard with Max to create the new Transgenic Nation, so it was a surprise when he vanished without trace. With the Transgenics trapped inside Terminal City, how could they send out help to track him down and bring him home? The Losers were still on the run, determined to put an end to Max and Wade's machinations when they spotted a familiar face on TV. It had been years since they'd been deployed alongside X5-494 but he'd always felt like one of their own, so maybe it was time to get back in touch.

**Disclaimer:** All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Author's Note**: Thanks to my betas without whom I'd have panicked myself into not finishing. Any mistakes still belong to me. Special Thanks to user sillie82 at LiveJournal for the awesome artwork.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Lost But Not Forgotten<span>**

**Prologue**

_"First impressions are often the truest, as we find (not infrequently) to our cost, when we have been wheedled out of them by plausible professions or studied actions. A man's look is the work of years; it is stamped on his countenance by the events of his whole life, nay, more, by the hand of nature, and it is not to be got rid of easily." (Willliam Hazlitt)_

X5-494 ran, heart thumping, eyes seeking out shelter, ducking and weaving to avoid the gunfire. He rounded a corner, panting and wondering how he'd managed to get separated from the rest of his unit. He'd done everything he was supposed to and used the exit route they'd agreed on. He was beginning to feel like he'd been laid out as bait to draw fire.

It only stirred him into running faster, blurring over the space between him and the dilapidated buildings across what passed for a road in these parts. He heard a low shout, "494!" and turning his sightline slightly, he caught a glimpse of the other unit's tech guy. "In here!" He darted across the intervening space and ducked behind the wall to join Jensen and saw Pooch there as well.

"Where are the others?" Jensen asked, grimacing as another volley of gunfire flew into the air over their heads. 494 shrugged, not bothering to give voice to his suspicions. He wasn't sure enough of the situation to tell anyone else that he thought they'd gone against orders, deliberately abandoning him to enemy fire.

"Don't worry, we have an exit strategy!" Jensen was almost grinning and 494 found himself dreading what he was going to say next.

"Are we getting out alive?" he asked solemnly, only to be met with a round of laughter from both his companions, before they all hit the ground flat, hands over their heads as there was the shatter of stone splintering and flying into the area surrounding them.

"Napping on the job, ladies?" Roque's voice had X5-494 jerking up in surprise. The other two men just smirked back at their XO who had just climbed over the back wall and into the shelter with them.

"Oooh, you got toys!" Jensen said with humor. 494's eyes fell to the bazooka under his arm and the clear bulges in some of his pockets that hadn't been there when they'd been setting out on this particular foray into enemy territory an hour or two previously, 494 was sure.

* * *

><p>494 was used to screwed up and screw ups. Seriously, Manticore anyone? Basement cell after basement cell filled with off casts, the 'nomalies that no one could ever be sure exactly what they were supposed to be. Then there were the successes. Honestly, 494 didn't even know all the components of his own genetic make-up and he came across as 'normal' on most of the comparisons with ordinaries, apart from the super speed, super strength, survival under extreme duress, super soldier side of who he was.<p>

At least he could walk down the street without drawing more than the passing interest of a few people who were looking, for the most part, at his physical attributes in a positive light.

This team though were supposedly all ordinaries. 494 wasn't sure that he didn't have his doubts about that. They were all a little . . . 'off.' Take the Lieutenant Colonel and the way he 'interpreted' orders . . . there was both a looseness and a certainty that he was right, that screamed of X5 and bred for the position although the guy was too old to be an X5 as far as 494 could tell. There was also a rugged realness to Clay's admittedly handsome features that reminded 494 of how so many of the X5s were 'too' good-looking, too picture perfect, no flaws, as if they were each made to appeal to a particular taste in case it helped on infiltration. He wished thoughts like that would surprise him, rather than make him feel just ever more resigned to his situation.

The XO for the group, Roque, was tall and brutal. He was mean and driven and obsessed with his knives, but deadly. He didn't suffer fools at all and 494 could not help but admire his single minded efficiency. It didn't, however, stop him from worrying that the guy might take a dislike to him and follow it up with a knife to the throat while he slept. In truth though, 494 had been following orders too well for that right then. He had drawn all those assumptions from watching Roque's reaction to the tech guy, who in honesty would be enough to wind anyone up.

The tech guy was something else entirely. 494 found himself drawn to the guy, Jensen, whose age wasn't too different to his own. He could talk in a way that 494 didn't think he'd ever really experienced before and he had been accused of having a smart mouth way too often. He was easy on the eyes as well, 494 knew they had thrown a few looser sexual preferences into the X5 mix in case it was useful to have them working undercover and infiltrating but he was also well aware that the powers that be didn't extend the same belief to the rest of their soldiers and so despite this guy's pink shirts when they were not in the field, and overly familiar friendliness, 494 knew he was better off keeping his distance.

Jensen was clever, real clever when it came to computers and hacking and he could talk a mile a minute on just about any subject you cared to mention. 494 found it stimulating. He felt like he was having to use parts of his brain that lay dormant in most of his dealings with ordinaries just to keep up. He liked it, would love to have been able to get used to it.

Or at least once the initial misunderstanding with the sniper was over. Cougar was terrifying, even to someone with 494's heightened senses. He would admit that there was a reassurance to knowing how good at his job the sniper was; more than once now, 494 had been out with Jensen and felt his hackles rise with the sense of 'observed – tracked – vulnerable'. Jensen smirked at him the first time he reacted, looking round for the threat, and then just laughed, saying , "Cougs really is just that good! Don't bother looking, you won't find him." 494 had tried and failed, equally unnerved at the slight snort of what he was sure was disparaging laughter he'd heard through the comms. Jensen had smiled wide and pointed discreetly but equally unerringly in a direction that he hadn't even suspected and heard the quiet "Si" from Cougar indicating that Jensen was in fact right.

Cougar's silence was unnerving as well, 494 didn't think he had heard the guy say ten words in the first week with the unit. It was strange that Cougar's silence affected him so much, when his own unit were almost silent. They weren't like some of the X-7s with the whole Manticore mindmeld deal, but there was no conversation between them at all or not that they had let him in to anyway. But as for Cougar, 494 was adjusting and he wasn't sure they liked each other yet, but there was a healthy mutual respect and 494 was under no doubt that Cougar had his back.

Pooch was another kettle of fish entirely. He was the most ordinary of them all in 494's opinion. There was nothing that screamed 'different' but he was damn good at his job and seriously his skills as a driver were enough to have 494 white-knuckled and fearing for his life. It was as if he thought they had all got X5 regenerative powers, which they clearly didn't but then he was so good he got them free of more than one scrape with little by way of serious injury.

They were a team but they were adjusting. 494 knew they had his back, knew they were trying to fit him intoi their/i team; there was no fixed mould so it was kind of working. He was adjusting too. He had screwed up just enough to feel like he fitted there and he was coming to like his spot and hoping that the army saw fit to leave him there with them and forget all about him. He almost wished that he was ordinary enough to stay as part of a team like this one, but he knew that really all Manticore was doing was widening his experiences to make him blend in more. It wouldn't last; the good things in his life never did.

He wouldn't be left there, no matter how good the fit, because in truth, that wasn't his team, his unit. He loathed his own unit, used to the way they treated him, although clearly Clay's team didn't understand it. In his more optimistic moments, he thought the only reason this mission had gone anywhere near to plan was that he had fallen into the role of some sort of liaison between the two groups. Clay didn't trust the other X-5s, but then they had done nothing to engender trust or even respect. They had made clear their disdain for ordinaries, almost sabotaging the mission with their refusal to follow Clay's orders until 494 pointed out why it was going to work and how with a little tweaking they could play to their strengths. He'd talked them into it, but his insistence that they informed Clay of their 'improvements' nearly earned him another beating.

It wouldn't be the first at the hands of that unit. He didn't fit; they didn't want him there. They knew more about his past than he could reliably remember. There were snatches of memories in dreams, moments when something he saw or heard or smelled would start to trigger something more, something older. He knew the signs, if only from having seen them in others: he had been through re-indoctrination and judging by the headaches that any of those memories seem to trigger, it was something big. He wasn't inclined to prod and poke to find out more.

His unit knew enough to treat him with derision; in their eyes, he was something less than X-5. His memory might have had gaps, there might be things he wasn't sure of, but one thing he knew for sure was that he i_could be/i_ X-5 and he was bred to be superior, to be the ultimate soldier and so he didn't care what the others thought or tried to imply, he knew how good he could be.

* * *

><p>Turned out that Roque had no intention of relinquishing control of the bazooka to any of the others, but he was happy enough to hand over the grenades and ammunition he'd acquired before joining them. Once they were all restocked and an interim plan formulated that apparently involved "blowing shit up", "setting the world on fire" and "hauling ass", 494 thought he knew what they were about to do, although part of him thought Manticore needed to reconsider what it called 'Common verbal usage' because there was a point at which he felt somewhat adrift from the conversation until the others had registered his bewildered expression and explained it all more clearly. Five minutes later, he was running down a dirt track with the others and he could see in horrifying Technicolor detail just what "blowing shit up" and "setting the world on fire" looked like and seriously "hauling ass" sucked!<p>

Ten minutes later and Clay approached in a 'borrowed' transport. He didn't actually stop the vehicle, just slowed down enough that Cougar who was on the back could help haul them each up in turn. 494 was surprised when he wasn't the last to be pulled in, it was what he would have expected of his own unit. Roque gave him a shove forward though and so Cougar grabbed his arm and as he started to pull, Jensen reached over to grab his other hand and before he could say a word he was falling gracelessly onto the floor and trying to roll out of the way before they pulled Roque in on top of him. He was not going to tell them that as an X5 they should have left him until last, that he could have run faster, but wasn't going to leave them behind, that he could have jumped in on his own, but didn't want to risk landing on any of them in the process. He tucked himself into the corner of the transport out of the way and waited to see what happened next, because he didn't know how to deal with the situation any more.

They were all on board and Clay had put his foot down to the floor and had them speeding away before anyone asked again about the rest of his unit. He shrugged; he had no idea. There was a knowledge and understanding in their eyes that he didn't get, not sure what it was they thought they had worked out. He was just grateful they didn't leave him behind as well.

He closed his eyes as Pooch and Clay performed some weird and definitely life threatening maneuver that put Pooch in the driver's seat and had Clay shifting to the passenger side without slowing down at all, or at least that was the way it felt, although there was a lurch of more speed once Pooch was settled into position so 494 just quietly wrapped his fingers around the edge of his seat and closed his eyes until the world seemed to balance out again.

X5-494 startled when he felt a hand on his arm. Fool that he was, he hadn't been concentrating. He looked at the hand, followed it up to see Jensen looking at him worriedly. Cougar was passing him something from his pack and before 494 could stop him, Jensen had got a cloth and was wiping blood from a cut on his forehead that he hadn't even noticed. Jensen was quick but thorough and Cougar handed him what he needed without a word. 494 knew he ought to tell them not to bother, he wasn't ordinary, his body should be able to deal with this, but something stopped him and he didn't understand what it was. Roque was shifting his position, pulling 494 round and holding him still. He still couldn't get a word out, didn't know what this game was, but for all the determination and forcefulness, Roque didn't seem to be trying to hurt him and the next thing he was aware of was Cougar moving closer, handing Jensen something that he hadn't seen before Cougar's hands were on him as well.

He didn't get it, didn't understand at all, until he felt the sharp pain of Jensen digging into his side and before he could force them off, pull away, Jensen was saying, "I've got it!" and then the worst of the pain was over and Cougar was passing a wet cloth over the area and they were applying a dressing and Jensen was holding out a piece of shrapnel and 494 knew he should know what it meant, but he couldn't process it right then.

It was quiet in the back of the transport and 494 watched as Cougar checked them each over before the attention turned back to him. He had enough time to clear his head, to understand that, for reasons he didn't understand, this team was worried enough about his injuries to try and fix him up first. As it turned out, his was by far the worst injury, a slice of something that he didn't even notice in the melee across his head and up into his hair line and something sharp and evil embedding itself in his side. He didn't want to see it, although Jensen had offered. This team was worried about him and that was the bit that 494's thought processes kept grinding to a halt on.

* * *

><p>They had reached a safe enough distance to slow the transport down a little and try to work out a plan of action, Clay threw Jensen a bag and as the rest of the team watched, Jensen managed to rig up some sort of communication device that he then patched into the frequency their comms should have been on. It was stronger than what they used individually, could pick up fainter signals but there was nothing. 494 began to wonder if maybe the other X5s just hadn't made it.<p>

Jensen's black look suggested something else however, 494 wasn't sure what, until he saw the tech begin to search other frequencies. They heard it then, clear as day, the voice of X5-671, 494's unit leader, not injured, not stressed, just planning and acting as if his was the only unit in the area. 494 didn't know what to say so he stared at the space between his feet and hoped that Clay's team could just forget about what they'd heard and that he could have known what his unit were planning. He could feel eyes on him and shivered. The sound went off and Jensen said, "They fucking left you to it! They left you out there as bait!" 494 could hear the disgust in his voice and tried to keep still, to not press himself any tighter into the corner. He was an X-5, he reminded himself, created to be stronger than this. He tried to draw himself up, to sit straighter, but they were still looking at him and he couldn't look up, he couldn't bear the thought of what he would see in their eyes.

Cougar was the one to shift position. He stepped over Jensen's bag in the middle to stand alongside 494, rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment, just long enough that 494 felt compelled to look up. Cougar nodded, didn't say a word, but his eyes were soft and filled with understanding. He sat down alongside. There was silence, 494 found himself counting the seconds, wondering how long before someone else said something, said what they really thought of him.

Cougar broke the silence and wasn't that just the kicker. 494 was almost shaking with the strain of other people knowing how much of a failure he was, so much that a unit would abandon him, would use him as bait and he wouldn't even know until it was too late. "What now?" Cougar said.

Clay's voice was terse as he said, "Jensen, get that turned back on and tuned in so they can hear every damn word I say. . . "

Jensen flicked a couple of switches and then passed the equipment off to Clay. 494 might have been dreading what came next but he couldn't help feeling a very secret little quiver of pleasure as X5-671 actually goddamned squealed when Clay's voice first started in with no warning. Judging by the reaction of this team, when Clay broke radio contact without giving the other unit any time to question or change his orders, Clay went easy on them. Roque was snarling like some kind of rabid animal as he sharpened one of his knives.

Jensen shifted position but stayed on the floor, instead coming to rest leant back against the bench seat that 494 and Cougar were sitting on between their legs. He gave 494's knee a squeeze before settling back to make himself more comfortable, then turned his attention back to his equipment and his efforts to get through to the military pick up that was due, to arrange exact location and timing

* * *

><p>Battered and bruised and still feeling the pull of the healing wound where the shrapnel hit, 494 threw the last of the kit bags to Cougar, who passed it up to Jensen to store inside the helicopter they were about to move out in. The bulk of the weaponry was loaded first and Roque, Clay, Pooch and the helicopter pilot were putting the final touches to the planned route out of the danger zone. The rest of the X5 unit were loitering idly against the wall, soaking up the sun. The Losers seemed pretty relaxed, relieved the mission was over and glad to be heading back to US soil. 494 felt a lightening of his spirit as he watched Cougar deliberately fake throwing a bag without letting go of it and Jensen almost fell out of the chopper as he grasped at thin air. Jensen flipped them both the bird before reaching to snatch the bag from Cougar's hands with an off-hand, "Asshole!" before smirking at the sniper.<p>

"494! Get over here now!" 494 looked over at his unit leader. The glare he received in return was murderous. He looked round, knew the job was done and that he was not just abandoning the other team to finish the loading. He held his head high as he crossed to join his own unit.

"Sir!" he said as he stood to attention. He felt as other members of the unit jostled him, but he didn't react, just kept his eyes straight forward. There was a sudden kick to the back of his knee but he didn't make a sound as he tried to stand his ground without stepping away. It was a struggle that he barely managed.

It wasn't enough though as he felt his chin grabbed and the warm puff of air across his cheek as X5-671 moved in closer. He kept his eyes straight ahead and tried not to flinch as X5-671 sneered, "What game do you think you're playing this time, soldier?"

He didn't know what answer to give so for the moment he remained silent. Loading up was clearly not the answer 671 was going to want to hear. He breathed steadily for a moment, counted the beats until 671 stepped back. "Nothing to say for yourself? We could always see about making that permanent!" Before he could do anything, 494 was pinioned between two members of the unit and 671 was drawing a fist back. He did the only thing he could, bracing himself ready for the first blow.

It didn't come. Instead he heard the Lieutenant Colonel's voice behind him, "Problem here?"

671 was glaring, but there was no answer. "Let him go!" Clay ordered and 494 dropped to his knees as they released his arms, suddenly off-balance again. "If _you_ don't want to be left behind, you'll get in that chopper now!"

The rest of the unit were already moving, heading for the transport when 494 felt a hand go under one arm as he was hoisted to his feet with a sudden jerk and found himself face-to-face with Roque. The man's gaze was appraising and 494 found himself looking away in embarrassment. "You okay?" Roque said, voice quiet despite its gruffness. 494 nodded. Roque shook his head as if he didn't believe it. "Load up now, soldier." It was an order, but it lacked any vehemence.

Clay was watching as well as 494 walked across and accepted Cougar's offered hand as he climbed into the back of the chopper. 494 knew they would be sharing some sort of look that spoke volumes, he had seen them do it before, but he could never decipher what was being said.

There was a sense of relief as Clay swung up into the back and gave the pilot the order to move out. Clay saw him look round to check that they were all on board, then they were on the move.

* * *

><p>Clay was glad to have the mission over. Not that that was a particularly unusual sentiment at the time. He wasn't sure where he went wrong with this team, but they seemed to get progressively more ridiculous assignments; ones that no one could reasonably expect to come back from alive.<p>

He hadn't lost a soldier yet, and he was pretty determined that wasn't going to change any time soon, but there were plenty of times when he felt that the deck was stacked heavily against him.

He didn't like the 'unit' that he had been 'given' to work with. They were not right, they were not normal. For fuck's sake, they didn't even have names! How could that be right?

He knew their leader was just waiting for the opportunity to not follow his orders, but he still had no idea why the guy was so antagonistic. Christ, none of them were older than Jensen and seriously, Jensen was just a kid . . . these . . . these 'soldiers', they were babies! Weird and fuckin' evil babies, but babies nonetheless. Clay seriously doubted whether any of them were even old enough to need to shave! It wasn't right.

He couldn't quite decide whether that frightened him more than the way they fought or not. Then there was the silence. That wasn't natural either . . . seriously, Clay had been working with Cougar for the last couple of years and that was a man who took silent to a whole new level, but those kids . . . the silence with those guys was just plain nasty.

He had watched them and he could honestly say he had never seen anything like them before. Most of this strange team were silent; virtual automatons in the back of the van, but he saw a sick gleam in their eyes just before they'd been deployed. He didn't like it; it wasn't normal, the way they worked, the way they relished the blood and gore. He'd felt sickened as he'd seen them hunt down a few of the druglord's minions who'd managed to escape the initial slaughter. They were like animals the way they'd torn the bodies apart. They also had no compunction to avoid civilian casualties, another thing that Clay detested. Fuck! That alone nearly blew the operation when his own team was ready to turn on them for the negligent slaughter of bystanders. It had taken himself and 494 to drag them all out without them killing each other. He didn't want to spend too much time thinking about how he was going to deal with all of that crap when he got them all back to U.S. soil and he also didn't like the thoughts that were going through his mind about what could happen to 494 when he was alone with his unit.

X5 – 494 worried him. If this 'unit' fell under the usual army umbrella, he'd be checking up on the kid, informing the chain of command that he was concerned for the kid's safety in his own team. That avenue wasn't available to him; the usual rules didn't seem to apply. Sure, he would make the complaints, but he had every reason to believe that they would be ignored. He knew the kid was a good soldier, reliable, followed orders, thought stuff through.

Clay could imagine that in a team where he was valued, 494 would be more like Jensen and sure, Jensen had gotten more than the usual share of black marks to his name for insubordination but Clay saw why and had figured out how to utilize the kid's intelligence and play to his strengths without the need for the disciplinary action. Of course, he still had to turn a blind eye to . . . certain less desirable traits like the garish t-shirts and the hacking in his boxers, but Clay counted it a small mercy that he did in fact wear boxers while hacking. After all, things could have been worse. He also figured that DADT applied to more than the usual when it came to Jensen, and he most definitely did not want to know what else Jensen had hacked into in his downtime.

Clay would have been willing to add a permanent sixth to his team, if the brass had ever been going to go for it, but he knew it wasn't an option. This kid would be shipped back to wherever they all came from and Clay doubted very much that he would ever see him again.

* * *

><p>They were sat on a military helicopter that was flying them clear of the danger zone and to a regular army airfield from where they would get the next transport plane back to the US. The two units were sat facing each other, expressions of distaste on both sides. X5-671 looked at his unit, who with the exception of494 were ranged to his left and right. They had performed well, even 494 for the most part, although he would be glad to see the back of that particular loser when they returned to Manticore. He also wouldn't hold back on his criticism of 494's 'over-familiarity' with this other unit, his lack of loyalty to his own kind. He would happily tell their superiors at Manticore of every last one of his failings and he would also make sure that everyone else knew of his 'ordinary sympathies'. 494 wouldn't be able to move at Manticore without someone breathing down his back until he knew exactly what his place was.<p>

671's gaze settled on the ordinaries they had been working with, not bothering to hide his disgust at having to follow the orders of their CO. They were . . . pathetic . . . ill-disciplined and inferior. He would have liked nothing more than to fully let his thoughts flow and to have informed this 'team' of how ridiculous they were in his eyes. He knew better though. He was under no illusions that he was being judged on his ability to perform and to lead his unit. This was a test, the same as carrying the weight of 494 was a test.

Both were tests he did not intend to fail.

His eyes slid across to the ordinary tech specialist with utter revulsion. He might have been technologically trained, but 671 was sure it was nothing that he or another of his unit couldn't have learnt to do quicker and with far less pointless chatter given the opportunity. Not that they would ever be given the chance. He had heard the tech say something about hacking into their own government's systems. 671 was astute enough to know that there wasn't any chance of Manticore giving X5s that skill set. They would be too frightened of the backlash. 494 might be the only one to have defied orders, but it didn't mean to say that the rest of the unit were entirely loyal. Judicious – that was the key. Manticore's days were numbered, the days of ordinaries dictating to superior X5s were ticking away; not that 671 was going to risk his ass by precipitating anything, but he was damn sure going to be ready when the chance came.

He sneered as the tech started on another ramble, trying to engage 494 and their sniper in some wild description. It was easy for X5-671 to sit there and picture ways of silencing the fool. He closed his eyes to enjoy the images more fully. An image of the tech, gagged and suspended as he sliced him open, drew a pleased sigh from him.

The image was spoiled as he sensed that he was being watched. It wouldn't have been his own unit . . . they knew better, were probably imagining something similar themselves. His eyes snapped open, glaring round the inside of the transport until they landed on 494. The worm didn't even look away, but 671 could see the analytical appraisal in his eyes, before 494 looked disgusted and turned away.

494 would be made to pay for that. Traitor that he was. Ordinary sympathizer. He knew what he was looking for even if 494 himself didn't remember what he had been before. Sacrificed a mission in an effort to save an ordinary girl. Scum! He could hang with the ordinaries for all 671 cared, maybe hang him first, that would teach him what it really meant to betray your own kind. Of course there would be the added pleasure of knowing that 494 would last longer than any number of ordinaries. It would be worth the effort.

* * *

><p>Jensen didn't like the other unit that they had been deployed with. Well, one of them was okay, but the others definitely fell into the category of 'dislike' to put it mildly.<p>

Actually, the one he kind of liked, X5 – 494, which was kind of weird as far as names go, worried him a bit. The whole not having a name thing was . . . disturbing. Jensen had been called a lot of things in his time and not all of them had been complimentary, but he had always hung on to his name like it was part of the real him, even when no one was going to be using it any time soon. Jake, Jacob, Jensen . . . they were all like some ingrained part of who he was. He couldn't imagine not having a name at all and 494 was pretty adamant that he had never been called anything other than that, not unless you count 'soldier' or 'asshole' he tried to joke. Jake tried to laugh, but he didn't really find it all that funny.

X5 – 494 worried him because he didn't fit with the rest of his 'unit'. Jake couldn't help wondering if there was something to the semantics of always using the word 'unit' instead of 'team' that was important there. Sure he knew that on paper he was part of Clay's unit, but in practise they referred to themselves as a team . . . somehow it meant something more.

Jensen had a couple of run-ins with the rest of 494's unit. They thought nothing of jostling him, pushing past him, trying to take his legs out from under him or kicking his chair as they passed. It was pretty pathetic, juvenile stuff and he wasn't sure why they weren't trying to take it further. He was itching for a fight and he knew his own team would have his back – no question. Then again, it was probably better that they waited until the mission was over and they were all out of the danger zone.

There was a malicious gleam in the eyes of a couple of the X5 team that Jensen was pretty sure was supposed to be intimidating. Call him a fool, but he was definitely not going to give in that easily. Mind you, he wouldn't mind having the opportunity for a little payback for the civilian casualties. He had worked with ruthless teams in the past, but they were just . . . animals.

He glanced round the chopper and saw the look of disgust that was being directed at 494, the look 494 was working hard to ignore. He needed to talk to Clay about that, because he really didn't think 494 was safe in that team. The kid needed a transfer out. He didn't fit with them at all. He seemed almost resigned to the civilian slaughter on the first op, but he was a pace behind them all the way, and Jensen hadn't failed to see both the look on his face and the way he behaved. His job it seemed, was to put any survivors out of their misery, the ones who wouldn't survive anyway, but would die painfully. He made it quick. Jensen wondered about that.

Jensen wanted to ask, to pry and poke at it until he understood. The behavior of the others was clearly no surprise, but what did 494's actions say about him? Did they make him a better man than the rest of his unit or not? He hadn't tried to stop them after all. Then on this second mission, they fucked off and left 494, no cover, no warning. Jensen was under no illusions that it was anything less than deliberate.

Jensen would be glad when this mission was over. He wanted to hack a few government files and see what he could find out about this X5 unit and whether there were others like them. They were not stationed on any of the bases Jensen had ever worked out of and no one else on his team seemed to have come across them before, which covered a lot of the US bases. He needed a little more information, 494 was the most likely source of that. He would have to try and get 494 on his own for a bit, might be a good opportunity to check up on him anyway and see if he did want Clay to put in a word on his behalf. For that matter if he wanted, Jensen would be willing to hack some files and get him a transfer if the kid wanted it.

* * *

><p>Back on US soil and reporting in at Fort Bragg was as tedious as ever. Clay's team were all tied up with paper work and the usual medicals, while only X5-671 seemed to be under any obligation to report in. The rest of his unit had been put into a temporary barracks, so the growing tension between the two units was no longer an issue.<p>

Although it had to be said that Clay had noticed how each of his team seemed to be able to pass by the other barracks at regular intervals throughout the day. He was pretty sure they were trying to check up on 494. He had done it himself. Mind you, he had also mentioned what he thought was going on in that unit to the brass, who told him to shut up and mind his own business; after all, "they're not regular army ". Clay couldn't help but snort at that – after all, his team weren't exactly regular army either, still it didn't do any good.

In the end, they only caught one last glimpse of X5 – 494 before his unit was shipped off back to wherever they came from. He looked a mess and the mistreatment that they'd thought was going on seemed to be pretty much a certainty, but he was already on a bus heading out and all they could hope was that he would get a transfer to a different unit when he got back.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace." (Dwight David Eisenhower)_

X5 – 494 still occasionally thought back to his mission with the team they called 'The Losers'. He wondered if any of them were still alive. They were good men, impressive too for a bunch of ordinaries. 494 appreciated the time he had with them, particularly given the nature of the unit he was with at the time. He was not always sure that he would have survived that particular tour of duty was it not for Clay's team.

He caught a TV report, while he was on a mission outside, which said they were all dead, traitors to the government, murderers of children in Bolivia. He didn't believe it, not in its entirety anyway. One thing he was sure of: there was no way Clay, or for that matter any of his team, would have been willing to sacrifice any children. If children died, 494 was certain that they would have been trying to get them out, that much he knew from the time they spent together. It only served to make him more dubious about whether they were dead at all.

Bizarrely, it was almost something he aspired to now, to find a 'team' like that. He didn't think it was possible at Manticore given the nature of the atmosphere there. The Pulse had only made things worse. Everything had gone backwards, he knew they were struggling to keep some of their training and security measures in place and for a time there were no re-indoctrination facilities left, all of them destroyed in the Pulse, along with the operatives who were undergoing re-indoctrination at the time. 494 had heard rumors on the ever virulent grapevine, that it wasn't just the Xs undergoing re-indoctrination that were taken out, but also some of the technicians and the supervising guards. It left Manticore with less personnel to rebuild the missing 'facilities'. Somehow, getting the Xs to build their own torture chambers hadn't quite worked, unsurprisingly.

Things had improved on a personal level since the Pulse. He was an operative again, not solo but paired and they seemed to be on a fairly equal footing. There was still an element of suspicion between them, 494 wasn't surprised by it, would be more worried if it weren't there. After all either one of them could be reporting back to Manticore on the other or maybe Manticore just wanted them both to think they were being watched to improve their performance . . . or maybe it was to ensure their loyalty.

Still he reflected it was a freedom he, for one, hadn't had in a long time, only remembered the vaguest hints of from before but he knew for sure that he didn't want to give it up again any time soon. Those in charge at Manticore had changed. Lydecker was out of favor although not yet completely out of the picture. 494 figured it wouldn't be long before someone decided they were all better off with Lydecker gone for good.

The woman in charge now, Renfro, was almost unbelievably more ruthless than Lydecker. 494 was sure she took a sadistic pleasure in watching mere ordinaries beat the Xs into submission. Her rules were clear though, like 1 + 1 = 2, do this and I'll reward you with this, do that and you'll be sorry they let you draw a breath. He may not have always liked what she gave him to do, but he could live with it. Smile and pretend that loyalty was an easy path to follow. But he knew they were all just biding their time now, waiting until the Xs could come out on top.

* * *

><p>The explosions that wiped out Manticore's DNA database were . . . a shock. Seriously, none of them were expecting it; it was i<em>not<em>/i an inside job, that much was for sure.

X5-494 wasn't quite sure whether finding out that Manticore was not as impenetrable as he had sort of always believed was the biggest shock or whether finding out that there were some of the escapees involved in the explosions trumped that. He had always sort of believed that if Manticore was going to fall it would be from the inside. As for the unit who'd escaped, well no-one ever expected them to come back. There was the initial surprise that any of them were still alive even. 494 had seen enough of his own comrades die of non-mission related crises as all the screwing around with DNA that Manticore had done failed big time. It had always been a salutary lesson – stay on the current leadership's good side or when the fucked up DNA comes round to bite you in the ass, you won't be a priority. Rather you'll just make an interesting bug in a jar, and when you're dead they'll cut you up to see what went wrong and salvage any leftover parts as replacements for better operatives.

So the upside of the attack in theory was the sex – revise that - the 'Breeding Program'. But somehow it wasn't. 494 assumed that he was just like any other hot-blooded male; he liked sex. The hitch came with that little bit of . . . he didn't have a word for it, but what it boiled down to was he liked his partners willing and half the time they weren't, and that sucked.

He marched down the corridor behind the ordinary guards, heading for his latest bed-mate and hoping that this time she would be willing to just get on and do the necessities, because the alternative sucked big time.

Nothing like marching down bland, dank corridors to a cell that was used for solitary confinement of X5s who were showing bizarre side-effects in the past, to build up a sense of the romance in his opinion. Yeah, this was where, when resources were better, they would throw X5s for observation between bouts in Psy-Ops treatments, or as their DNA began to break down and they wanted to observe the process. It had been a halfway house on the way to the morgue, the science labs or the 'nomalies.

Yet there they were trying to create the future of Manticore. Sometimes 494 believed it would be better if by some fucked up co-incidence, they were all sterile and there could be no more like them. He for one wouldn't willingly procreate and subject a child to years of the treatment he had been living with for the whole of his life.

The guards in front of him came to a halt and he struggled to get his mind back in the game. What he was counting on now was things going smoothly for once and him actually being able to just do what he'd been told. He bit his lip as he waited for the door to be unlocked, met the guard's eye briefly, and realized what a mistake that had been as he recognized the man. He started to step forward only to feel himself grabbed by the ear. The willpower it took not to react was huge. "Come on, pretty boy," the guy sneered, "Show us what you've got!"

He almost stumbled, but managed to keep just enough of his footing to step calmly into the cell and wait for the door to slam shut and lock. He stood waiting, listening as footsteps receded down the corridor, still not looking back to verify that the one guard had remained behind to watch. It was a well-known fact among the X5s that this particular guy liked to watch, seemed to get more of a thrill when the girls put up a fight. He also knew the ideas for revenge that had been bandied around the barracks late in the night.

If Manticore ever actually fell completely, this guy wouldn't make it out alive. Too many X5s would be out for his blood. The only question in Alec's mind was how long would they draw out the torture before they killed him.

He took a step forward, still keeping his back to the door. He spoke quietly to the girl who sat on the cot, knees drawn up to her chest. He sniffed the air tentatively, although he knew already she wasn't in heat. Manticore didn't have time for that and they hadn't worked out how to up the frequency of their heats either. Strange how they'd spent years trying to work out how to curb that side of their nature; years trying both surgical and pharmaceutical ways to quell the blinding urge that the girls couldn't control and the guys couldn't resist.

Ironic that now they needed it most, the scientists seemed to have happened on the most effective means to control it, and despite having removed the drugs in question from their daily intake, its effects had not yet been reversed and so heat cycles were few and far between. "Hey," he said, waiting for a response, not moving in closer.

She looked up at him through her bangs. She didn't want to go through with it, but there was no real fight in her. Wouldn't make it any less like rape in his mind if he made her submit. "You know what they want us to do?" he said. She nodded but stayed exactly where she was knees drawn up.

"We've got two choices . . ." He saw the terrified swallow and the way her eyes squeezed shut. "I can do it, try to make it okay . . ." He didn't voice the second option, hoping she'd take the first. If he didn't say anything she might assume the second would be 'rape' but in his mind that wasn't the case. The second option would be him reporting to Renfro and take whatever punishment she might decide on for them.

It was true of most aspects of their life, that the downside was always that there was no actual choice involved. From 494's perspective, the girls were pretty enough and he didn't need a connection to fulfil his part of the deal and it was okay when they went along with it, even if he knew it was just because they were as frightened of the consequences as he was. It was the ones who fought him that made the whole thing so ridiculously sick and twisted. He had two choices: he could either overpower and force them, which he really didn't want to do, or he could call the guards and report his partner to Renfro. He went with the latter, every time without fail. It was the lesser of two evils, no matter what the consequences might be for the females. He never liked doing it, he would have kind of liked to have offered them the opportunity for a joint lie – say they'd copulated and then in a few weeks or whatever the scientists would have decided they were not a viable pair when there had been no conception, but he couldn't risk that. There were too many chances to be caught out: by the scientists, sold out by the female in question, by guards who had wandered along for a look-in to watch them perform like a sick sideshow. So he stuck with the reporting to Renfro, no matter how much of a bastard he felt afterwards and consoled himself with the fact that he was still better than the guys who chose the overpowering option and then bragged about it afterwards.

He looked at the girl again, she hadn't moved but he could see the way she was trembling. He moved forward slowly, trying to keep his movements as unthreatening as possible. He sat down at the opposite end of the bed, making no move to touch her. He spared a glance in the direction of the door and saw the sneer of the guard standing there. He glared back before turning his attention back to the girl beside him. He drew his legs up and crossed them, leaning back against the wall and waited.

There was a snort of disgust from the doorway, the sound of the metal hatch slamming up and footsteps stamping down the corridor. "The Watcher's gone," he said. "Not that it makes any real difference to the situation we're in."

She was actually crying now and he felt like a shit even though he'd done nothing wrong. He leant forward gently brushing the hair away from her face exposing bruises he'd never imagined were there. "Shit! I'm sorry," he said. "I'm – I'm not going to hurt you, I'm not going to do anything here, okay?" He leant back to give her more space.

She curled tighter into the corner and took a deep breath, finally lifting her head so he could see the full effect of the bruises, the split lip and the tears. "Whoever it was last time hurt you?" he said. "They put you back in here so quickly?"

"Wasn't like that," she said.

"You want to tell me?" he wasn't sure he wanted to hear, but at the same time, there was a morbid curiosity about hearing the worst of his kind.

"Last time was a while ago, but yeah, he hurt me. Didn't care at all. Didn't matter though, got me pregnant all the same."

"Shit! I'm sorry."

She shrugged, went on to describe how she'd lost the baby. He got back from a mission just days ago. He'd found out and gone looking for her. He'd found her the day before and beaten her into the state she was in now. All because he'd been promised some perks if she carried to term.

He shifted; let his feet drop to the floor, felt as she curled into his side as if recognizing that for once she was alongside someone who really wasn't going to hurt her. He laid his arm gently over her shoulder, let his hand rest in her hair and held her while she slept. "I've got your back," he murmured into her hair.

* * *

><p>The guards came by to check on them a couple of hours later and he demanded to see Renfro. They looked uncertain, knew it wasn't the first time he'd made the same demand, but this time he was holding the female's hand as she stood shielded behind him.<p>

They left him where he was. He guided her back to the bed and they sat and waited.

It was morning before the two of them were led together from the cell to Renfro's office. He stood to attention before her desk, still shielding his breeding partner as she stood as much to attention as she could.

"What is it this time, 494?" Renfro's voice was calculating. "You don't normally drag the unwilling ones with you . . . some new reason why you can't perform?"

"Saving your assets, ma'am," he snapped back. Her head tilted, eyebrow raised in question. "You required me to copulate with X5 -823, ma'am."

She nodded, fully aware of exactly which partners she had lined up for X5 – 494. She'd watched him closely, been aware of how many times he'd refused to copulate when the female was unwilling. What he didn't know, and she had no intention of sharing, was how many of the times he'd had a willing partner there had also been a conception. She was curious about this X5, he was . . . different than most of them. "How exactly are you doing that by not doing your job, 494? I assume that's what you're here to tell me . . ."

"Yes, ma'am. X5 – 823 was attacked and badly beaten yesterday. I didn't want to risk further damage to her, ma'am."

"823 . . ." She stood up and moved round her desk, headi ng for the female, circling her and regarding the obvious injuries. She reached out and lifted the female's chin with a finger. 494 hadn't been speaking amiss. If the rest of the female's body was in this state, she shouldn't have been in with an X5 male last night. In fact, it was probably good fortune that she had been placed with 494. "Do the injuries extend elsewhere, 823?"

"Yes, ma'am." Her voice was far quieter than Renfro usually expected from the X5s.

Renfro tapped a finger against her lip as she thought over the sight before her. She needed to follow this up with the guards and the medics; someone should have pulled the plug before she ended up damaged further. She was one of the few females who had actually conceived. They'd had hopes, combining her with 494 particularly that perhaps she would carry to term.

"You're dismissed, 823. Go see a medic, make sure everything is seen to." Renfro turned her back on the female, staring intently at 494. He hadn't moved, relaxed even a fraction. He was fascinating, so unlike the majority of the males they'd picked for the breeding programme. He was a strange one; so many little quirks that she couldn't quite put her finger on and now . . . she thought back to the file on her desk . . . now things could be even more interesting.

"Ma'am?" Her train of thought interrupted, Renfro turned impatiently back to the female who hadn't yet left. She frowned impatiently waiting for whatever else 823 was going to say. "Ma'am . . . when I . . . when I'm fit for duty again . . . p-please could it be with 494?"

That was unexpected. Renfro turned back to look at her. She took a step back and leant against her desk and she watched the female twitch nervously. In honesty, this female had had a hard time. She'd faced some of the most alpha males and she'd resisted every time. It said something about 494 that she was now asking for him. Most of the females who refused him came to regret it later when they found themselves paired with someone who didn't take no for an answer.

"We'll have to consider that later, he may not be available then," Renfro said curtly, after all there was no point in giving anything away. The female nodded and started to stand down ready to leave. "823 . . . before you go . . ." The movement stopped. "Who did the damage?"

She'd expected one of two results, the female would tell her or not as she saw fit. She wasn't going to chase the information, but if she had it, she might follow it up if it seemed worth it. It would all depend. As far as it went 823 was one of the more valuable females. The answer was quiet when it came, "X5 – 671, Ma'am."

494's gasp of shock was the biggest surprise, and Renfro found herself trying to picture the X5 in question and why he was significant to either of the X5s now before her. "Did he have a reason?" she asked, curiousity piqued. X5s rarely acted without some sort of provocation, but then the grudges they held and acted on would not necessarily be based on a recent occurrence. It was another one of those things that fascinated her about these creatures.

"The – the fetus was his." Renfro's eyes widened. She knew the X5 in question, he was a real animal. She'd seen the mission reports from when he was deployed, always high numbers of civilian casualities, missions were accomplished but without finesse. This was punishable though, this she wouldn't stand for. 823 was too valuable an asset, she had actually conceived. Renfro had hopes that with the right care, the mistakes of the previous pregnancy could be avoided. The drug cocktails had been changed again.

"494, escort 823 to the medical unit, make sure she arrives there safely. Then report back here, I have another assignment for you." As the two X5s left her office she picked up her phone and called the medical unit, giving strict instructions on how X5-823 was to be taken care of and demanding a report as to how she had passed the previous day's medical and been declared fit for copulation when she clearly was anything but fit for the duty. She had time to make a second call before 494 returned, this one demanding that X5-671 be taken to solitary confinement under restraint to be dealt with later. She'd look again at his file later, when she had more time on her hands and decide whether he was worth keeping. It was a mistake to tell him about the conception, but he'd not been as violent with 823 as he had with others and she'd hoped that perhaps he would be more like that in future, inflict less damage on his partners and increase the rate of conception.

There was a short sharp rap at the door and at her command, 494 entered and stood to attention in front of her desk. She walked round him, taking a long assessing look. He was attractive enough in her estimation, not as heavily built as some of the models; tall and lean. His genetics were nearer to the ideal than the majority; he'd suffered fewer side effects than most models, yet he'd also been re-indoctrinated following failed missions. Empathy appeared to be his principal weakness, it was where he had failed on the Berrisford mission, too soft to allow for civilian casualties; the same thing that kept him from copulating with unwilling partners. Outside in a normal human, it would have been an admirable trait. Now it was just a nuisance.

It was interesting as well that his predecessor, one of the escapees, had gone so completely rogue that he'd turned serial killer. Definitely an imbalance in some gene code or maybe it was something hormonal between the two of them, leaving one with too much and the other too little empathy. She could work with this though; it would serve her purpose for now.

"I have another task for you, 494."

"Yes, Ma'am." He didn't make eye contact, just stared straight ahead as he stood at attention.

"Stand at ease, soldier . . . and listen carefully. . ." she began.

* * *

><p>494 hadn't been able to help but wonder why Renfro picked him for the subterfuge. X5-452. A captured escapee, supposedly the one most responsible for the attack. There was a part of him that wanted to make her suffer for what they had all had to suffer because of her unit escaping. Mind you, there was another part that wanted to ask what was so different about her unit that they ran and why didn't they get everyone else out sooner? There was a part of him that wanted to make her really understand how what they had experienced up until her unit ran was nothing – nothing compared to what had happened since. There was a part of him that wanted her to know what it had been like, what she had brought down upon them all, on the females like 823, but he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't do it because this time he'd been given an alternative; an authorized alternative, and there was part of him that hoped that she would escape and that she would come back again, and that next time . . . next time Manticore would fall and they could all be free.<p>

He said nothing. He accepted Renfro's deal – sex with X5-452 if she agreed and he decided not to force her, or helping her to escape and elevation back to solo operative status with all the associated perks. He figured it was worth the gamble and Renfro already knew he wouldn't force her, because he will never forget how X5-671 would treat female civilians and captives, and he knew what had happened to X5-493 and he didn't want to ever risk himself crossing that line in case there was no way back.

* * *

><p>As he helped her escape, he wondered if she had really thought about what she was doing. Freedom might be tempting but he found it hard to believe that she really thought it could be that easy to escape now, unless, as he already knew, Manticore wanted her to escape. He resigned himself to the thought that it was another sign of what came after she left the first time.<p>

He reported to Renfro and was given his first solo mission outside: track 452, and bring her and Eyes Only back. He was given a head start for, while she was on foot, he had gotten transport and he knew roughly where she was heading. It didn't take long to find her and then it was just a matter of waiting long enough for her to have infected Eyes Only.

She was feisty and she fought dirtier than any other X5 he had ever met. For a moment, he was reminded of Clay's team : for all their training, they weren't above using less formal military training if it got them the advantage. They would use whatever they knew to their advantage. It was something that you didn't just pick up from the kind of training he had. It was something he still needed to learn, wondered if he would ever get the opportunity.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_"The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of the aftermath." (Led Zeppelin)_

Things fell apart so quickly, it was hard to get his head around it. Manticore was gone, Renfro was gone and he was out and, for the moment, he was free. Free, but not stupid. He was not out of danger by a long chalk. He was grateful for all he had learnt, was fully aware that he stood a far greater chance of survival than most of his Manticore counterparts who had gotten zero experience on the outside, but that he was also well aware that he still had a lot left to learn.

It was not a freedom that any human would recognize. He was on the run; no money, no job, no clue as to where to go or how to stay below the radar. The one thing he did have now was a name . . . Alec. The irony of it being the name 452 gave him wasn't lost but it was a low key enough name that he was happy to stick with it and somehow it felt like his own.

He was in hiding and alone again, so given the circumstances, it was a not-unusual occurrence for his thoughts to travel to The Losers, to wish that they were alive. There was a part of him that always clung to the belief that they would have helped him if he could escape. He was never quite sure why he had held onto that so much. In a more cynical moment, he had put it down to naiveté. It might well be another sad reflection on his own life that the nearest he remembered to ever having someone care about him was the time he spent with them. Not him as a military asset, there had been plenty of that, just him as a . . . person. It was the one clear memory he had of anything like it. He shuddered at the thought of something like it, but not the same, further back in his memory, a girl, but the memory was confused and overlaid with pain, and he didn't poke at it for fear of what else it might unleash.

He needed to stay below the radar as much as he could, that much was for sure.

* * *

><p>Jensen sat in the motel room he shared with Cougar alone, flicking through TV channels while he surfed what was left of the internet. There was still plenty out there if you knew what to look for, the problem was the majority of it was no longer based in the US. The Pulse had seen to that. While the US was still struggling to re-establish itself and become the power house it had once been, Jensen used whatever he could.<p>

The same newsreel had been playing on the news for the last couple of days as people picked away at the tragedy it described. Jensen watched the online newsreel with more than a mild dose of scepticism. He couldn't quite put his finger on what was precisely wrong about it. An explosion at an army vets' hospital not far from Seattle . . . all vets dead, and only one or two of the senior staff escaping and able to give comments to the media. He chewed at the inside of his cheek as he pondered the information. There was also a distinct lack of families coming forward to lay claim to lost family members, no one shouting for compensation.

The Losers weren't doing anything particular at the moment, laying low as they hunted for a new lead on Max, so it wasn't like Clay would be unduly bothered by him 'amusing' himself looking into the information. Clay would probably agree with him that it was suspicious, and seriously, army vets . . . it was close enough to home to hurt.

He had enough time on his hands to hack a few satellites and download their data for the period they would have passed over the explosion site. He traced it back to a few days before the explosion and got the highest resolution downloads he could. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he saw what was happening in the grounds of complex – it was anything but a vets' hospital.

He wondered what exactly he'd stumbled on.

* * *

><p>It was a relief when Cougar and Pooch both seemed equally perturbed by his findings and so it was that he began to dig a little deeper, trying to find something more substantial, something that would give them more of a clue as to what had really been going on. It was definitely a military training camp, although not one listed on the usual official books. That alone wasn't that unheard of, particularly in these post-Pulse times, but he still had that feeling that there was something more that he was missing.<p>

He downloaded yet another hack, even earlier and this one was an even better resolution : camera surveillance of the actual site that had been uploaded into a central computer base. He couldn't help but feel pretty smug about that. He could make out individuals, see almost enough detail to try and identify them, almost enough to run facial recognition. He wondered whether it was worth it, was there enough clarity to try?

He leaned back and stretched, trying to work out the kinks in his back and neck, feeling the cracks and pops that would have told any sensible person that they'd been working in one position too long. He watched the video play, mind already wandering to where else he could look for more information. He closed his eyes, pinching his nose to relieve a little of the tension that had built there, along with the eye-strain that came from too long staring at the same footage over and over.

He sighed when he felt warm hands on his shoulders, the gentle squeeze of fingers into taut muscles and let out a breath of relief. "Cougs," he murmured.

"Too late if it's not!" his friend said quietly. "You were lost in your own world, Jensen. It could have been anyone. . ." The reprimand was mild and familiar, and Jensen looked over his shoulder with a guilty grin, that Cougar knew too well. He took his glasses off, closed his eyes and leant back into Cougar's deft fingers. "Have you found anything yet?"

"Not really . . . nothing useful anyway. More of the same," came Jensen's reply, followed by an indignant "Ouch!" as Cougar's hands tightened unexpectedly into the tight muscles. "Seriously, dude, be gentle – I'm fragile, you know."

"Jake! Have you seen . . . Look!" Jensen's eyes snapped open and he reached for his glasses, trying to see what had surprised Cougar. "Back a bit . . . There! Look!"

Jensen stared in shock, "That . . . That looks like that kid, the one with no name! Fuck, that was years ago, but he still looks like a kid. I'm surprised he's still in the military at all after the way that team used to treat him."

"He's not in the military anymore, Jensen. He's dead. That's what the report said; all the vets at the hospital died."

"Does he look like a vet to you? Does he even look fuckin' injured to you? Look at what they're doing! The whole point of me looking at all of this is that nothing adds up : it's supposed to be a vets' hospital, that's not video stream from a vets' hospital! Who's to say he's actually dead? Maybe . . . maybe he's in trouble or maybe we need to find his family and make sure they're okay. He was like one of us, Cougs!" Jensen had turned to look at Cougar intently.

Cougar seemed to think on it for a moment before nodding his agreement. "We should talk to Clay."

* * *

><p>Alec knew he had a tail, but he hadn't managed to work out who or why specifically. This so called freedom had come at a high price. He had lost the few friends that he had: Biggs, Cece . . . they were decent people. Not just typical arrogant X5s, but rather realists; they knew their strengths but they knew their limitations as well. He'd never managed to find 823, wondered whether she had made it out at all. He hoped so; he hoped that she'd made it somewhere safe.<p>

Alec scanned the street ahead, looking for a diversion or something . . . Just long enough for him to disappear from sight or snatch a motorbike and he could be out of there. He was like Max in this: too visible, too well-known. In many ordinary minds he was too culpable for the sins of Manticore; all those fervent religious types who didn't have a clue and couldn't see the hypocrisy in their supposed beliefs and practices, and were therefore, more than happy to hunt him down and slaughter him because he was not like them.

Not that he thought that was what it was this time. This tail was better than that. This tail was almost military in its operation; probably Familiars rather than regular Army though, and he really didn't need another run in with White. His arm had barely recovered from the last time, and he still got a phantom pain in his neck from what he was sure was just the memory of the explosive implant. He glanced down a side street and decided it was his best option. If he stayed out in the open, he was done for.

He dodged into the alley and then blurred forward a distance, putting him further ahead, he hoped. Just as he was starting to prepare himself for a jump upwards over the dead end wall or at least high enough to get hold of the fencing on top, someone stepped out of the shadows in front of him.

"I'd stop there, if I were you," the man said. "I don't really want to have him hurt you." When Alec tensed ready to leap over his head, he heard only one more word, "Wade . . ." before he was hit with a pain that made his muscles lock and his brain feel like it was seizing. He couldn't help but fall to the floor, muscles twitching and spasming, but this was no ordinary Taser as the pain went on and on until finally his brain decided it had had enough and completely surrendered plunging him into blessed darkness.

* * *

><p>He was caged when he came round; caged and chained with hands cuffed to the bars behind him and a chain looped round his body and hauled back to secure him as well. It was overkill that much was for sure. Or maybe someone was just trying to prove a point, psych him out or something.<p>

His head hurt, his eyes felt dry and sticky but he couldn't rub them clear. He was cold, unusual for an X5, he knew his temperature usually ran warmer than the average ordinary, so this feeling of shivering and chilled damp skin was unusual to say the least. He had experienced it only a few times before in his life – rare bouts of sickness, or when he had been undergoing some of Manticore's more extreme tests as they tried to find out just what the limits of an X5 really were.

He had never functioned well in the cold; his genetic make up didn't lend itself well to either of the extremes in temperature! He knew he'd been classified as more suited to work in temperate climates than in desert landscapes or arctic conditions and only 'viable' for short periods in those extremes. His rare forays into high temperature environments had always seen him lingering lower in the chain of command of a unit than those in temperate climates. It was a horrible feeling as over time he'd feel like his brain functions were closing down, his thoughts were becoming muddy and reactions slower. He'd be tired when he knew he shouldn't have reached the limit of his body's fitness.

It didn't bode well for his time here. He sighed, feeling as a violent shiver wracked his whole body and banged his head forcefully against the bars. He squinted a little to refocus himself, then tried to start thinking of a way out. He didn't hold out much hope of escape, but tried to think while he still could.

For a moment, there was a passing thought that perhaps his captor knew about his problem with the cold. He didn't dwell on that either, after all, it was not going to help him any.

* * *

><p>Clay listened as Jensen detailed everything he had found out. They had been at this too long for him to be surprised by how good Jensen was any longer, but he was impressed nonetheless . Impressed, but not happy. He remembered the kid like it was yesterday, had never lost the feeling of guilt that he couldn't do more for him to get his unit changed, get him transferred to somewhere Clay could keep a proper eye on him.<p>

There was no question now, Jensen had got more than enough information to have Clay determined to find out exactly what happened to X5-494 and to make sure he was as well as anyone could be in these post-Pulse times. The Losers looked after their own, more than ever now that they were no longer in the Army and they were still hunting Max.

He gave the go-ahead for Jensen to focus on that. In the short term, Max could wait. He had little doubt that until they got a lead from Aisha or Max did something obvious to bring himself back into view that this was a better use of Jensen's time. Now that Roque was gone, another addition to their group wouldn't be a bad thing although maybe the kid, if he was still alive, wouldn't want that. Clay reminded himself that it had been years since they last saw 494, there was nothing to say he would feel the same way towards them that Clay knew they all felt for their memories of the kid.

* * *

><p>Over the next couple of months, Jensen immersed himself into trying to find out more about the centre that had gone up in flames. He had finally tracked down information that detailed exactly what was on the site – an operation entitled Manticore. He was still researching exactly what went on there, it was hard to be sure with the personnel they were employing ; a mix of military personnel of varying degrees, doctors and medical staff, along with genetic scientists. No archaeologists though, so he was not expecting to find a secret Stargate program or anything like that. Pooch clipped him round the ear at that suggestion and told him to grow up, but the rest of the team had been saying it for years and Jensen figured they were used to him as he was, so he had no real intention of changing any more than life had changed him already.<p>

It took a long time to attach names to the sealed files of personnel and there was an inordinate number of them single with no families, no one to ask if they have even been seen since the explosions. For the most part, it was another series of dead ends. Not that Jensen was giving up any time soon, not now that he had the bit between his teeth. His interest had been kick started and he would stick with it.

* * *

><p>The next time he woke it was to the splash of ice cold water hitting him in the face. It was brutal but not entirely unexpected. He didn't know who these people were and he was beginning to wonder how long he had been out of it. Hunger gnawed at his insides, and he knew his muscles were tight and cramped from the unnatural position he had been leant in.<p>

More lights flicked on, beating down on him and making the pain in his head renew with a far more active rhythm. He snapped his eyes shut, trying to reduce the pain. It didn't last long when his new companion made himself known. "Closing your eyes won't change anything." The words were sardonic. "You'll still be chained up, wet in a refrigeration unit and I believe you're not one of the 'adapted to extreme weather condition' types!"

Alec opened his eyes, struggling to focus on the suited man in front of him. He was not sure why he was having so much difficulty seeing; it was more than just having woken from sleep, because it hadn't cleared yet. He blinked a few more times in the hope of things improving.

"Oh, not seeing straight yet?" the other man was leaning arrogantly against the far side of the cage. "That might be the new improved Taser that Wade's enjoyed playing with . . . or it might be the fact that he bumped your head a few times as he bundled you into the transport for the journey from there to here, and then he had to get you out at this end. Oh, I don't know and to be frank, I don't really care. You're here and that's enough for me."

"What do you want?"

"Hi, I'm Max, nice to meet you. I believe you're X5-494, otherwise going by the name Alec."

"I don't care," Alec spat the words out angrily. "It makes no difference who you are. What do you want?"

"You!" He laughed, "Oh, don't look at me like that. You're an X5; they can be handy to have around, to control."

"Fuck you!"

"Nah," Max sounded almost bored. "In the meantime, I've got a few tests that we're going to carry out on you though. Need to make sure I've got my information right, before I add to my collection."

Alec shrugged, trying for his own version of boredom. There had been scientists and doctors at Manticore, sadistic bastards who played this kind of game, taunts and threats to get you on edge before they even started. Over the years, Alec had learnt to hide the majority of his feelings behind a mask, it didn't stop the fear, it didn't stop the dread, but at least this way gave him the pleasure of not letting them see it.

* * *

><p>Pooch was sprawled in front of the TV watching yet another newsreel of propaganda and fanaticism in the anti-Transgenic war currently being waged right there on U.S. soil. It was sickening to watch. Jensen had put enough of the pieces together that they all knew that X5-494 would have been or possibly still was one of these Transgenics that were 'on the loose', escaped from a military installation. Bad press was the least of their problems. The military had left them to hang, fed them to the wolves with tales of all their 'unnaturalness', without talking of the service they had all put in for their country, the freedom they've ensured for the rest of the God-fearing American public. The Losers knew how that felt.<p>

From what they all remembered of that mission alongside the Transgenics, the majority of them were arrogant bastards, admittedly efficient and effective in the field, but not exactly house-broken. Now Pooch would ask the question whose fault was that. He was inclined not to believe it was the Transgenics at fault, but the politicians, scientists, medics and military advisors that thought it was okay to concoct humans in test tubes, mix a little animal DNA in with each and then bring them all up in a military compound as soldiers from when they were able to walk, brainwash them and not let them learn about society. Truth be told, away from the military confines of their upbringing, he imagined more of them would be like 494, which led him on to wondering how 494 managed it anyway. He was not inclined to think these Transgenics would all automatically be evil, but he wasn't naïve enough to think that they were all gonna be good guys either.

Pooch wondered what Jensen was up to now. Jensen had been looking pretty tired again lately, it was common enough, any time he got sucked into researching something, he was pretty determined not to stop until he had gotten all the answers he could. It was one of the reasons they never let him have a room on his own. Cougs would always put his foot down at some point, and insist that Jensen stop working and get some sleep. Cougar didn't mind the sharing, actually seemed to like Jensen's company most of the time despite the complete contrast in their personalities, and he also took seriously the whole looking after his younger team mate. It was a good thing. It meant that when Clay was off with Aisha or Pooch had gone home to Jolene, there was still someone to make sure that Jensen didn't forget to eat, sleep, or wash, or anything like that and in return whenever Jensen headed home to his sister, he always took Cougar with him. Pooch had paused to wonder once or twice whether Jensen harbored some secret plan for his sister and Cougar to get together, but nothing had ever come of it, beyond Cougar becoming the equivalent of another Jensen sibling, although much quieter than the original versions.

Cougar chose that moment to make his entrance. He looked round the room, frowning as he took in the closed bedroom door and the quiet in the rest of the downstairs, which he was no doubt assuming meant Jensen was on the other side still working. His attention was caught by some new abusive tirade from the TV and the frown deepened as he let out a half-growl of disapproval.

Pooch reached for the remote and flicked the TV off, pushing himself up and across to help Cougar with the shopping he was carrying. "Jensen has been in there all afternoon. I took him in a sandwich and something to drink a couple of hours ago, but he barely looked up at me."

"He's determined to find 494," Cougar said quietly.

"I know. You want me to make something to eat, and you can take him out and walk him?"

"Ha! You make it sound like he's a dog, in need of walking and feeding!"

Pooch just tilted his head and said, "If the shoe fits, man! Just don't get kinky with a leash!" Cougar snorted a laugh before grabbing two bottles of water from the fridge and heading for their shared room.

* * *

><p>Jensen had taken the evening off. In truth it was purely because Cougar and Pooch were refusing to allow him back into his room or to bring his laptop out. He was dozing in the corner of the couch, as the two of them watched an old Die Hard movie repeat. They'd played cards for a while earlier in the evening, but none of them were really in the mood so after a few hands they'd given up.<p>

As the film finished, there was another news broadcast, supposedly updated information, but as they'd come to realize most of the broadcasts over the last few days were just replays and rehashes of things they'd already seen. Pooch turned the volume down and started to get up to head into the kitchen for another beer. Jensen's eyes flicked in his direction and he drew a breath in as if about to speak, before shifting position and closing his mouth. Pooch squeezed his shoulder on the way past, "You want me to get something for you, bro?" Jensen shook his head and closed his eyes, letting his head drop against the back of the couch listlessly.

They didn't often see Jensen like this; there had been a time after the chopper came down, another after Roque's betrayal, but it was always unnerving while it lasted. So with another squeeze, Pooch left him be, and fetched himself and Cougar beer.

He'd just opened the fridge door when he heard a "Fuck!" from the other room and the sound of sudden movement. He slammed the door shut and hurried back to see Cougar trying to turn up the volume on the TV and there in front of them, close up was X5-494.

"He's alive . . . he's fucking alive!" Jensen's voice was shocked before falling silent again to listen to the commentary on the broadcast.

" . . . two transgenics who are claiming to be _leaders_ of this new Transgenic Nation." The picture flicked to that of a girl, long black hair hanging loose down her back. "Max Guevara or more correctly, X5-452, states that the transgenics are not asking for anything to which they are not already entitled. The right to jobs, homes and medical care. Father O'Hara of the West St. Church has this to say on the subject . . . "

The picture changed as that of an irate somewhat plump priest came on the screen. "Rights! These creatures have no rights! They are abominations, not creations of God. They should be exterminated . . . like vermin before they damage the essence of our communities and the civilization we have worked so hard to create!"

"Bastard!" Jensen muttered angrily.

"Next we have a comment from the military . . ."

"This should be interesting," Pooch sneered.

"Yes, it is correct to say that at times, some transgenics have been mobilized within other serving forces overseas. They do have certain skill sets which make them an asset when deployed alongside human units, with senior officers able to ensure they are utilized in an appropriate manner. Having said that, they are not humans and it would not at this point be appropriate to allow them free rein to disperse among the ordinary civilian population of the United States. Rather citizens should be assisting the military by reporting any known transgenics or people they suspect of being transgenics to the military so that these few rebels can be rounded up and dealt with appropriately by the proper authorities."

"Oh yeah, 'cause we all know how trustworthy that process is!"

The picture returned to that of the news reporter. "The military authorities have declined at this point to specify any of the actual overseas campaigns in which transgenics have been deployed or to give any indication of the military records of any specific transgenics, even the two '_leaders_'_._ Ms Guevara claims not to have served at all, but rather to have lived outside the confines of the military for the last ten years and to have had a job and an apartment since reaching approximately the age of majority. When questioned on this '_approximation_', she informed us that she has not been able to gain access to her actual records and so cannot be certain of her birthdate. Alec McDowell, her second in command, or as the Army refers to him, X5-494, was a serving soldier until the recent uprising, although he remains adamant that he played no part in the downfall of the base in question. He is unwilling to comment on the specifics of any particular deployment, but confirmed that he has served in a number of Eastern European, African and South American conflicts. He refused to comment on whether he had ever taken action here on U.S. soil, stating only that all service was under direct orders of his superiors until they decided it was more prudent to eliminate his kind, regardless of their loyal service."

* * *

><p>The broadcast had barely finished before Pooch's phone rang. It was Clay telling him to make sure the team were all there, he was on his way back, he had information. Pooch told him they'd seen the newscast. Clay hung up with instructions to start thinking. Like they hadn't been doing that already!<p>

Clay walked through the door to find Jensen sitting with his laptop, trying to find as much information as he could about Seattle and more specifically the area known as Terminal City. His nose was wrinkled in apparent disgust as he read successive web pages.

"Okay, Losers, tell me what we've got so far . . ."

"Transgenics is a term that covers a whole range of . . . ummmm . . . people? Basically, they started with human eggs and sperm and then mixed in various types of animal DNA. They were trying to make a race of supersoldiers. There were a lot . . . and man, I mean _a lot_ of mistakes made before they got what they classified as 'success'. Some transgenics were created to perform specific tasks, those they were less worried about them looking human and blending in. Apparently there were 'desert models' and 'arctic models'. The goal was to ensure that they could survive in the extreme conditions, so they could survive on almost no water say, or . . . ummm, extra eyelids . . . that kind of thing. We could have served alongside them but they would never have been brought into contact with anyone but their own 'handlers'." Jensen paused, flicked up a few different pictures on the laptop so the rest of the team got an idea of the kind of transgenic he was describing.

"494 was an X5. They were considered to be the pinnacle of the success of the program. Basically they could fairly easily pass as a normal human and so they could be deployed alongside regular army units. The differences were that they had heightened intelligence in terms of the speed with which they could accumulate new knowledge, they could move faster and some were built heavier for power. I'm guessing 494 was more about speed than the power, because judging by some of these pictures he was fairly lightly built. They were then trained to fulfill certain roles, basically from when they could walk. They weren't ever children as we'd know it."

"Even among the X5s, there were different types. Some were intended to be unit leaders, tactical thinkers, universal blood donors – kind of the opposite of a vampire. From what I've been able to find out, the combat X5s were originally brought up in units. The aim being that once they were ready for service they would then serve together, performing at a higher level because their familiarity with each other would make them act kind of intuitively together. I don't think they were actually telepathic, although they did create later Xs who didn't communicate with speech at all, but by data flows through computers with their commanders and sort of sonically with each other – kinda weird! Anyway, they also made clones of each model. If one went wrong, they'd experiment on it . . . him . . . her? " Jensen sighed, "I don't know what to call them . . . They made adjustments to them, they made later models out of the clone parts they'd got in storage. If one died, they froze them and then used parts of them in injured versions of themselves. It was sick, man, really, really sick!"

The other Losers were sat dumbfounded, trying to actually imagine the bizarre scenarios that Jensen was describing. "Sounds like something out of a George Orwell novel or some shit like that!" Clay said.

"So the first real problems hit when one group of these X5s escaped. They were still kids when they went, but they acted as a unit, got out together and then went their separate ways. Manticore only managed to recover a couple of them, some of them they killed in the process. They then changed their operating procedure with the rest."

The Losers were amazed by the sheer volume of information that Jensen had accumulated. "Most of this has been so heavily classified, it's not true. It's not even in the CIA databases! I'd have found it before now, believe me."

"Where's the information from now?"

"Variety of sources, obviously some of it made it out of the supposed explosion with scientists and the like. I tracked a few of their names and then hacked their systems to see if they'd brought out any of their records. Individually, they didn't have much, but cumulatively it adds up. Also the 'renowned' cyber-journalist, what kind of job is that? Yeah, anyway, the cyber-journalist, Eyes Only, knew and worked with the now leader of the Transgenics, Max Guevara, X5-452, so I had a poke round his files as well – he had a lot of good stuff on there, some of it from a Colonel Donald Lydecker."

"Lydecker?" Clay sounded surprised.

"Yeah, Donald Lydecker. You know him?"

"Knew him. Long time ago . . ." Clay rubbed a hand over his face before speaking again, "Was a good soldier . . . then his wife died. There was something funny about it and Lydecker kind of lost it. I was overseas and when I got back there were different rumors circulating – BCD . . . Section Eight. Didn't make much difference, he was out, gone. Not really something I've ever thought about since."

"Well, apparently, he was the one in charge of the whole thing. He was THE Military as far as they were concerned. Until he fell out of favor a few months ago. They sent a replacement and hey ho, big explosion and pretty much all of the transgenics are now on the loose! End of. . ."

"Fuck!"


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_"The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty, love, do not require coupons." (Unknown)_

So it turned out, this 'Max' was a real sadistic bastard, and Alec still had no idea what in particular he wanted. What he did know was that he didn't have any qualms about hurting prisoners; rather he seemed to enjoy it. He didn't bother getting his own hands dirty though, invariably ordering some lesser minion to do the 'hard work'.

Alec recognized Wade's style: definitely a Familiar, very likely ex-Phalanx, although some of the others he brought with him, while having a Familiar's strength, didn't seem to have quite the same level of training in utter brutality. It didn't leave him a lot of options. For the minute he was out-numbered, outgunned and he had no means to escape. He worked instead on finding out all he could and waiting until he could play an advantage. He was also trying to keep his own injuries to a minimum; pride be damned, tactically he played up his injuries; 'passing out' from pain, submitting under the brutality. These bastards weren't like White's team, it seemed they had little direct experience with X5 tolerance and so for the minute, they were under the impression he was far more hurt than in reality was the case.

It wasn't an advantage yet, but if he played his cards right and took a chance when it came along, they would be seriously underestimating just what he could still do. None of which was to say that he wasn't injured, of course. He was keeping a mental tally of the worst of the damage and what allowances or adaptations he'd need to make in any forthcoming forays. He needed to know more, so he played his part and he listened, trying to glean information from the exchanges he heard around him. Apart from his megalomaniacal tendencies to monologue on world domination, Max gave little away. Wade was arrogant and sadistic, but he submitted it seemed without question to Max's orders. It left Alec to the assumption that Max too had to be a Familiar.

There'd been no mention of White or the Phalanx and there were moments when Alec wondered if they were some sort of breakaway group, in the same way Sandeman had had his connections but had then headed for his Manticore days, before leaving that too behind him. Questions abounded and answers weren't forthcoming with any ease. Alec had no idea what he was going to do with any he did acquire.

He sat, head back against the bars, eyes closed, and wondered, how much longer he could last. The dropping temperature was taking its toll, sapping his energy, dulling his reflexes, and slowing his thinking. The pain of injuries that couldn't heal in these conditions combined with the burn of muscles tired from being in the same position too long. His time was running out slowly.

He was holding on, trying to fight the urge to give up, trying to find a way out. He owed it to 'his' Max, 452 who held the fate of the Transgenics in her hands. He owed it to all the Transgenics holed up in Terminal City, and those still running, trying to find freedom and safety.

* * *

><p>Jensen had been almost hoarse by the time he'd shared all the information he'd found. His team-mates had moved the discussion onto ways in which they could contact 494, and that was why in the early hours of the morning two days' later, Cougar was slipping silently through the streets round Terminal City, trying to find some safe way of making contact with the people on the inside.<p>

He slid unnoticed from shadow to shadow; taking note of the patrols both inside and outside what was now for all intents and purposes a military compound. He'd found a couple of spots where if the timing was right, the security outside the fence was weak enough that contact could be made with someone inside, but it was to a certain extent going to be about luck.

He returned to the base that his team had set up to relay his intel to Clay. The problem wasn't necessarily going to be making contact with the inside, more likely it would be making contact with someone who gave a damn. What had been clear was that the atmosphere inside Terminal City was strained, although there were leaders and there was a very strict military protocol underway for security, there were also factions within the compound, dissatisfaction with the current situation and some of the stronger and more brutal Transgenics were not happy with sitting back and waiting for their 'ordinary' counterparts to talk. They wanted a war with the government, they wanted their rights to be free and they didn't care who got hurt in the process.

Loyalties were strained and it wasn't going to make it any easier for Clay's team to help, alongside which they did not want to be drawn into anything that they couldn't get out of. They'd been on the run for too long now, barely managing to keep themselves and their families safe and alive. They'd fight for their own, they wouldn't back down in the face of injustice but they weren't about to start jeopardizing what little they had managed to scrounge back for themselves and the last thing they needed was to alert Max or Wade to their whereabouts.

* * *

><p>Max paced backwards and forward, trying to work out what to do next. What she really wanted to do was vent some of her frustrations about Alec's typically lax attitude to any kind of disciplined existence. She sometimes wondered how he was never terminated by Manticore or how they never took it into their heads to re-indoctrinate him in such a way that he paid attention to deadlines, meetings and responsibilities. She had, however, learnt the hard way that too many of the Transgenics would accept his leadership over hers. Some of the X5 unit leaders were barely willing to toe the line when she and Alec worked together; without him, she knew they'd take no notice of her at all.<p>

All the talk of freedom from Manticore, of rights and justice and equality and the reality was she couldn't deliver. No one could deliver it or not just like that anyway. There were times she didn't think it would ever be possible as the hordes screamed abuse outside the confines of the Terminal City compound.

Joshua shuffled into the room, looking anxious. He crossed to Max and said, "Alec not there."

"No, he's not here. He's late again!" she said, irritation clear.

"No, Max, Alec not there!" He waved at the door. "Not at home, not been there since he went on mission yesterday."

She spun round, taking in the implications of what Joshua was saying. "Alec's not at home?"

"Not since went on run yesterday to see Lieutenant Clemente."

Max turned away, truly worried now as the implications of Joshua's words began to hit home. She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm herself, think rationally. She had to be fair to Alec, there was no way he wouldn't have reported back after his meeting. For all his faults, she couldn't deny that he wasn't anywhere near that irresponsible.

"Luke," she began, crossing over to the computer banks, waiting until she had his full attention before continuing. "Did Alec check back in after meeting with Clemente yesterday?"

"Not with me . . . Hang on . . . " He turned away and tapped away at the keyboard. "There was a call from him to say the meeting was over, it had gone more or less as expected, he'd give more details when he got here, but that he wanted to check a couple of things out, so he wouldn't make his way back until he had stopped in to see Logan first."

Max closed her eyes. It was something else that she needed to admit: things had been strained between herself and Logan and while they hadn't severed ties completely, she'd been leaving Alec to act as go-between as much as she could. Alec had done it for her as well, with little complaint. She was left with little choice now but to contact Logan to see if he had heard anything from him.

"Luke, can you get me a connection to Logan? I need to find out if Alec made it there; maybe he's still there . . ." She doubted that would be the case, but she had to start somewhere. She owed Alec that much at least. It was time she started to acknowledge that he was changing; he was trying to do the right thing.

Luke wasn't able to get an answer from Logan and so leaving him to keep trying, Max wandered away back across the room to where she'd been working before, trying to bring her focus back on to the task of trying to organize the acquisition of supplies, and their distribution when they got them. It was hard to concentrate, her thoughts roaming continuously to the missing Alec and the fact that Logan wasn't answering his phone. Had something happened to both of them? It gave her thoughts a new direction to run as she tried to work out whom, if anyone, she could send to try and contact Logan.

It took three tries of calling her name before Luke managed to get her attention. "Logan's on the line," he said when she finally made eye contact.

She crossed back to the computer systems, grateful when Luke stepped away to give her a little privacy for the conversation. "Logan," she began, pausing to take in his expression and try to judge what he was thinking. "Logan, Alec had a meeting yesterday with Clemente. He checked in afterwards and said he was going to head to see you about something. I was just wondering if he was still with you."

"He's not here," Logan's voice was curt. "This is Alec we're talking about. Are you sure he hasn't just . . . I dunno, headed out somewhere on a whim? It's not like he's that reliable. I still don't know why you've made him your second."

Max resisted the urge to sigh. It was an old argument, tired and meaningless. She'd fed Logan's image of Alec and he'd fed it right on back to her, allowing them both to ignore how much Alec had changed. There were no real excuses, beyond jealousy and ignorance. He made an easy scapegoat.

"Did he come to see you?" she asked quietly. "I need to try and track him down."

"No. He contacted me to say he was on his way after seeing Clemente and he never turned up. I guess he found something more interesting to do. Maybe now –"

Max cut him off before he could say anything more. "No. Alec – Alec was doing his job; something's happened. I don't know what he needed to see you about, but he wouldn't have called you and then just not bothered coming. Not now. It's too dangerous and Alec knows that."

"What do you want me to do about it, Max?" Logan sounded impatient.

"Just . . . just keep your eyes open for anything that might be relevant and let us know please. If you hear anything. I think he might be in trouble. This isn't like him, not with things as they are here."

Logan shrugged. "I'll see if there's anything on the grapevine, but I think you could be wasting your time and he'll turn back up when he's ready." Logan severed the connection, but not before Max saw the disgusted look on his face. She knew it was her own fault. She'd done more than just disparage Alec; she'd used him when it was convenient, told Logan that she was seeing him when she was doing no such thing.

She knew she needed information but she had no real idea how to get it.

* * *

><p>Luke wasn't sure who it was who kept trying to hack into their system, but they were good and almost as fast as he created obstacles, they were breaking through them. He knew he needed to call in reinforcements, anything to try and build more fail safes and false leads to delay the team that was trying to break through before they found out more than anyone wanted them to know.<p>

He knew he was tiring and he only had the day shift, this hadn't let up in two days, but it just begged the question of what kind of team of hackers were on the outside trying to break their system? How many of them were there that they didn't seem to slow? The attack was seamless, morphing from one crack to another, adapting and shifting as he layered in the new programming as fast as he could.

* * *

><p>Cougar was pacing round and round the safe house, desperate to take action, and Pooch was watching him anxiously. They needed some rationality, some sense of order, and they weren't getting any. Clay had gone off somewhere with Aisha, leaving them with orders to keep watch, and Jensen with orders to get in touch with Alec via the Terminal City system and to hack in if nothing else worked.<p>

Jensen hadn't surfaced from his computers in over forty eight hours for anything more than increasingly rare bathroom breaks and even before that he'd only snatched an hour or two's sleep at a time. What had seemed like a straightforward enough order had turned into anything but. From what Cougar had managed to get out of Jensen, as fast as he hacked, someone on the inside was throwing up defensive maneuvers and diversions. He didn't seem to be able to get a message through their safeguards to try and contact someone with authority to get him in touch with Alec. At each turn, his attempts at communication had been rebuffed, hence the hacking attempts. Jensen was exhausted, but equally convinced that he was just on the verge of cracking the defences.

Cougar and Pooch had both tried pulling rank, something that occasionally worked with Jensen, but this time he had just ignored them, pointing out firstly that he was following Clay's orders, which they all knew had not been intended to put him in this situation, and secondly that they weren't in the Army anymore and therefore rank meant nothing.

Cougar had tried going in and pulling the plug literally, knowing that at some point Jensen's laptop would run out of power and maybe then he would be able to make Jensen take a break for some proper food and even more importantly some sleep. He hadn't gotten the chance, as he'd approached the socket, Jensen had drawn a gun on him and threatened to shoot him if he touched it.

He liked to think that Jensen wouldn't have shot him, but Pooch had dragged him out of the way, saying he'd seen something in Jensen's eyes, he'd never seen before. They were at a loss as to how to proceed. Clay still wasn't answering and Jensen was going to keep hacking until he collapsed from exhaustion.

Moments later, Pooch had an idea. With a growl of frustration that it hadn't occurred to him earlier, he stalked through the house to the cupboard with the fuse box in it, reaching to flip off the fuse that gave electricity to the circuit of sockets in the house, but leave on the light circuit in the hope that Jensen wouldn't notice until it was too late.

There was a sudden cry from the other room that had him and Cougar both dashing for the door to the bedroom. As they opened the door, there was the sound of a very relieved, "Yes! Thank God for that!" Jensen looked up at them, eyes bloodshot and bags below his eyes stark against his drawn features and paler than usual skin.

"I'm through and I've planted so many messages for 494, I mean Alec, to contact me or us with enough clues as to who we are and why. I guess now we just have to wait." The words were barely intelligible, heavily slurred by exhaustion. He started to stand up as he lifted his laptop away from his knees, only to stagger and almost fall. Cougar was close enough that he could catch him, while Pooch snatched at the laptop, taking it away and putting it on the table on the other side of the room. Cougar dragged Jensen back to his bed, laying him down as gently as he could before pulling his shoes off and drawing a blanket up and over him as Pooch flipped the main light off.

"Coug'r, I should . . . I should –" Jensen tried to sit back up again, only for Cougar to hold him down with a hand on his chest and to hush him softly.

"But – " Cougar frowned and Jensen stopped struggling. "Kinda tired, Coug . . ." Cougar just shook his head, raised an eyebrow and left his hand on Jensen's chest, until the tech finally subsided into sleep. Pooch shook his head from his position at the door.

"Do we take bets on how long he's out?" Pooch said softly. Cougar stood up with a shrug, pulling a chair over to sit down and keep watch. "Guess I'll leave you to it." Pooch closed the door behind him.

* * *

><p>Luke walked back in the following morning surprised at the excited buzz. There were more people than he expected to see. "What's going on?" he demanded.<p>

"The hackers broke through the system. We lost the battle."

Luke growled in irritation, "And no one thought to let me know. What were you playing at anyway? What's the damage? Which files did they get into?"

He wasn't really prepared for the answer of 'Nothing' and found himself sitting down suddenly, trying to make sense of the information. He poked and teased, but no one came up with anything that made sense, nothing that worked in the situation. He sighed and left people to relax and sort out their part in what had happened. He hustled people from the room so that he could have something more approaching quiet for the work he needed to do in terms of checking the integrity of the information of any files that had been hacked.

The reality seemed to be that whoever had hacked the system had not in fact tried to get into anything that they would deem classified. Luke picked apart everything and then he found it, a new file, placed fair and square and obvious when you were actually looking at it, so obvious in fact that it was easy to miss. The file was in the general access area and was labelled "For Alec, X5-494". How much more obvious could you get?

Luke pondered what to do with it. He began by isolating it, quarantining it from the rest of the system, and running all the checks he could on it. It still seemed innocuous enough, a basic text file and nothing more. Luke ran another set of checks and still nothing showed up. In the end, he was out of options for proving it was malicious and the only thing left to do was send for Alec to open it, and find out what it really was.

Luke went looking for Alec; he hadn't seen him since Max was looking the other day. It was unusual. Alec often spent hours keeping him company, asking him whether various things were possible, giving Luke ideas of new things that it would be good to be able to do. He'd shown a little interest in trying to understand a more about the programming side, but with little time to spare to give fully to the undertaking the X5 hadn't been able to learn much.

Luke knew Alec and Max often argued, wondered if that was the norm in democracies or if it was just the lack of understanding. Max was idealistic for someone who'd lived in this world for most of her life. She didn't really understand the pitfalls of dealing with so many different types of transgenic. It wasn't like the different groups would have been regularly exposed to each other inside Manticore, and generally when they had , it had been in competitive contexts.

Alec understood all that, he also understood the X5 temperament a whole lot better than Max did. Luke wondered if she realized how much troubleshooting Alec spent his time doing or how aware Alec was of the need to come up with a viable medical plan; too many Transgenics needed regular monitoring and access to drug cocktails to balance their screwed up genetics. It had been par for the course in Manticore and out here who knew what could go wrong with a less stable environment, at best adequate diet; more frequently it wasn't even that, along with the prolonged exposure to Terminal City. There would be plenty of Transgenics with weakening immune systems and who knew what kind of problems might be lying in wait?

* * *

><p>Max was tired of always being at everyone else's beck and call, and it only seemed to be worse since Alec had vanished. That alone spoke volumes about how much he had been doing without complaint. She was inundated with petty problems and beleaguered with X5 ego-trips. Units had reassembled as their members trickled into the dubious safety of Terminal City and old grievances resurfaced. Max had known that Alec dealt with a bit of this; she was beginning to wonder how much he'd dealt with. Terminal City was full of petty factions bickering and jostling for position, and few of them seemed inclined to listen to her.<p>

There was still no word on Alec. He'd been missing now for nearly sixty hours and she had no idea where to even start tracking him down.

She was almost grateful for Luke's interruption for something else to think about, even if it still came back to Alec. She listened as Luke explained the fight with hackers from outside, trying to grasp the intricacies of what he was saying and knowing that it was more Logan's field than anything she had ever had any interest in.

As they got back to the computer center, Luke was inundated with people hurrying to tell him something important. Clearly the hacker had been more devious than he'd realized. Folders marked "For Alex – X5-494" were popping up in more places on the system. They weren't doing anything, just sitting there waiting, like a ticking time bomb.

"What happens if you open one?" Max asked. "I mean I know they look like they're for Alec, but maybe it's not 'for' him but something we have to do in order to get him back?"

"Get him back?" Luke queried.

She sighed; the cat was out of the bag now. "We haven't seen or heard from him since the contact after his meeting with Clemente saying he was going to see Logan, and he never made it there."

Luke looked shocked. He kept his voice low as he said, "We should keep that quiet around here, but we need him back. There's a lot of stuff that he's . . . working on to keep things running around here."

"Yeah, I know," she agreed, curious as to what things Luke would be worried about. "Can we open one?"

Luke seemed to ponder the best way to do that before nodding and saying, "Come and find me in about half an hour and I'll figure something out."

* * *

><p>Alec came round slowly. He had no idea how long he'd been out this time, no idea how long he'd been in this hellhole even. All he knew was he hurt and he was beyond being able to keep himself ready for a chance to escape. He was beyond cold, his body was shutting down. "I'm sorry, Max," he mumbled, as he slipped into unconsciousness again.<p>

* * *

><p>Jensen woke after a straight twelve hours of sleep in which he didn't appear to have moved at all. When he tried to sit up, he felt stiff and uncomfortable, and it took a few minutes of trying to stretch and release muscles before he could even make it to sitting up at the side of the bed. He paused there as his head swam and tried to work out why he felt so bad, what the hell he'd been doing the night before.<p>

The door opened and Cougar stood framed in the entrance, head tilted to one side and smirk firmly in place. Jensen pointedly ignored him, dreading the no doubt detailed recount he would get later from Pooch of exactly what ridiculous things he'd done while drunk the previous day. Jensen pushed himself upright, unable to hide the groan of protest or the sudden light-headedness that had Cougar darting from the doorway to support him.

"Careful," Cougar said softly.

"Huh," Jensen stumbled as Cougar led him steadily out of the room towards the bathroom. "You're not normally this solicitous when I'm hungover. What's the occasion?"

"Idiota," Cougar murmured. "Pooch is making you something to eat. I came to wake you up."

"What's the occasion?" Jensen asked again, while also contemplating the fact that the thought of food was not as repulsive as he normally expected after a binge the night before. "I'm not hungover, am I?"

"No."

"Sooo…." Jensen paused, looking at Cougar. "Seriously, I'm going to have words with Clay about this. They send you, Mr Reticent himself, to fill me in on the missing details. Soooo…. What did I miss?"

"You slept. You missed nothing. You hacked into Terminal City, left messages for X5-494 and then you slept. You needed it."

"I slept . . . I slept and it made me feel like this, like my brain shut down and I can't find the on switch?"

"It took you a long time. You weren't eating properly and you didn't sleep."

"Ooooh! One of those kind of jobs, I get it. I eat and then I'll start functioning like a human again. . . that's okay then."

"That's debatable," Cougar smirked, leaving Jensen at the bathroom door. "Don't shower till after you've eaten. "

"Very funny!"

* * *

><p>It had to be said that Jensen did in fact feel about three hundred percent better after Pooch's high fat, high carb, high calorie breakfast, and did not give even a passing consideration to the state of his heart, arteries, or waistline while enjoying it. Memories of the epic hacking session came back to him as he ate, and he resigned himself to another morning spent at his laptop. "No!" said Cougar firmly. "Morning off. Fresh air, supply run, movement."<p>

"Bossy much?" Jensen snarked back.

"Man, he's right, J. You spent like nearly forty-eight hours hacking that system. If you don't just take a bit of time now, you'll be no good to us when we have to actually do something. I mean supposing 494 –"

"Alec! He has a name and it's Alec! Just use his goddamned name!" Jensen yelled, turning away, surprised by his own sudden burst of emotion. He stood back rigid, facing away from his worried team mates, trying to breathe deeply and calm himself down.

Pooch stepped closer, a hand reaching out to rest on Jensen's shoulder, "Hey, J, it's okay, don't sweat it, but you're proving my point, bro. You need a break. We need you to be okay and we don't know when we're going to hear from _Alec_," he emphasized the name, "or what we're going to need to do then. What we do know is we'll need you." Jensen nodded, still not looking round, but some of the tension easing from his shoulders. "Go with Cougs and get the supplies and just chill for now. We'll check your laptop when you come back." Pooch gave another firm squeeze to Jensen's shoulder before stepping back and sharing a concerned look with Cougar.

Jensen took another moment or two before he turned round, looking much more composed than he had before, although somewhat abashed by the outburst. "I'll, er, I'll just grab a shower and a shave," he looked at Cougar as he spoke. "That okay?" Cougar nodded, stepping aside to let him past.

The look Cougar and Pooch shared behind his back spoke volumes about how well they knew him, how they knew his emotions would run high, when he was walking the thin edge of exhaustion and stress. They also knew how personally he took it when a job relied on him, it wasn't like he was alone in that, but this . . . Alec had been almost like one of them.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_"The effect of one upright individual is incalculable." (Unknown)_

Luke opened the file on a lone machine that he had disconnected from the rest of the system after copying the file over. It was almost a disappointment to find that after all of the safeguards, it was just a letter.

He had no idea who from, but it listed a set of dates and co-ordinates and said, "We weren't there either. Willing to be in touch." Luke had no idea what it could mean and what he was supposed to do next. He turned at the sound of Max's footsteps behind him.

"It was a message after all that," he said, looking back at her. "Not much of one either."

"Have you found the co-ordinates? Matched them to the date? Did something happen there?" she asked.

"Skirmish, US government denied having anything to do with taking down a drug and weapons cartel, but not many details beyond that. The problem was that there were no accepted civilian survivors from the neighboring village, and so that's why the government wanted no connection, tried to pin it on another cartel but the action was all military. The one or two people who claimed to have survived were silenced as they basically said it was military and some of the soldiers basically killed anyone and everyone they saw."

"Manticore?"

"Could be . . . there were a few X5 units who had to have things covered up like that."

"Was Alec in one? Was he like that? Was he there?" she asked, suddenly unnerved by thoughts of Ben, thoughts of her own unit and the way they were forced to be merciless.

"I don't know. I know he served overseas, but he never talked about anything real, just famous places he'd seen. I've never heard him talk about actual mission details. I would guess that this is a case of what Renfro used to call 'plausible deniability'. Anyway, even if he was there, doesn't mean to say he was the one doing the killing," Luke defended.

"No, it doesn't, just . . . maybe if he was there, even if he wasn't responsible, maybe that's why he's been taken now," Max added.

"Could be . . ." They were silent for a while as if considering that possibility. Suddenly Luke said, "Or maybe this is someone he served with who doesn't agree with what's happening now and is trying to get in touch."

Max just snorted in disbelief, "Unlikely. . . I guess we need to get in touch though. We need to try to get him back and if whoever this is can tell us that, then . . . We owe it to Alec."

* * *

><p>Cougar was watching Jensen carefully as they made their way round the supermarket. The light-headedness from earlier hadn't fully passed, and Cougar hadn't failed to notice as Jensen leaned cautiously against the side of counters and the end of aisles as they made their way round.<p>

Hopefully they'd have a little recuperation time now, before anything else happened. Alec was clearly one of the few Transgenics who were allowed to come and go from the Terminal City compound relatively freely as he had meetings with the government officials, so, with luck, it wouldn't be too difficult to arrange a rendezvous.

He didn't bother trying to prolong the outing and once they'd got the supplies they needed for the next day or so, Cougar directed their steps back to the safe house, missing Jensen's usual chatter despite the man's presence at his shoulder.

"You should get some more rest when we get back," he said quietly, as they turned into the bottom of the street.

"I'll check the email in case he's answered," came the tired reply. Cougar didn't try to argue.

* * *

><p>Alec woke up and the first thing he was aware of was the change in position. He was horizontal, restrained again. He tried to look round, realized even his head was strapped to the table. Memories came back. He couldn't face this; Manticore was gone, this should be in his past. He bit his lip trying to keep himself under control, wondering why he hadn't been drugged. Re-indoctrination in the past had always been agonizing but he also knew that he'd been drugged, that some of the pain had been dulled by just the drugs, and the thought of facing it without. . . He felt it as his breath quickened, as he couldn't quite catch a full breath as panic threatened. He struggled feebly against the unforgiving restraints, only succeeding in rubbing his wrists till they bled, and he felt the blood seep round the edges of the cuffs.<p>

"Now my understanding of the process of re-indoctrination was that it would wipe out the memory, replace it with something useful, convenient . . ." The owner of the voice moved across the room slowly. Alec's eyes widened and his struggle became more frantic, as the man called Max leant in closer. "It seems that not all of the memories have gone, that you at least retain enough memory to know what to expect." He gave a half laugh as he stood back up again. "How the mighty have fallen! What use is all your transgenic superiority now, 494?"

Alec tried to turn away, frustration almost surpassing the fear and panic for a moment. "Oh stop fussing," Max sneered. "Wade's not even here yet and I'd have thought that you'd have learnt by now that I'm not about to get my hands dirty on filth like you!"

"What do you want?" Alec spat the words out hoarsely.

"To play and see just what an X5 can really withstand. After all, aren't you supposed to be the crowning glory of all that Sandeman nonsense at Manticore?"

"Let me out of these fucking restraints and I'll show you what an X5 can do!"

"Where would be the fun in that? Right now, I've got you where I want you! Right where I can set Wade to play with you, and sit back and enjoy the show!" He turned as the door behind him opened and greeted the man who entered, "Aaah, Wade, so good of you to finally join us."

* * *

><p>Jensen read and re-read the message, but it didn't make sense. Whoever had replied definitely wasn't Alec, that much was sure. Even if he hadn't remembered them, the message wouldn't have made sense. The confusing part was that they seemed to think he wanted something from them, that he was threatening Alec in some way.<p>

He didn't hit reply. He waited, expecting it to make sense if he just got his brain to catch up. He tried to put it down to his own tiredness and not being able to think straight, but it didn't seem to make it any clearer. Instead he just sat there staring at the screen blankly, until Pooch and Cougar entered the room and crossed to him. Cougar dropped onto the edge of Jensen's bed, while Pooch pulled up the other chair.

"J?" Pooch said softly, taking note of Jensen's distant and puzzled expression, but given that Jensen's fingers were still, he wasn't too worried about disturbing a train of thought and ruining anything Jensen was working on. "Jensen?" his voice was louder, but it was Cougar who leant forward to take hold of Jensen's bicep and give him a little shake.

Jensen jerked, surprised to see them there, but quick to say, "Oh good, you guys can help me. There's a message but I don't get it. It doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't make sense at all."

Cougar's hand stayed on his arm, but the contact was soothing and Jensen turned to him gratefully. "I can't think straight," Jensen admitted. "But at least you two can figure this out. Maybe I should get some more sleep."

Pooch's expression showed his concern at Jensen's reaction, at how unusual it seemed, but Cougar just stood and helped Jensen set the laptop on the desk and then supported him as he stood up and crossed to his bed. Once Jensen was laid down, Cougar sat down beside him for a few minutes until he began to snore softly.

Pooch turned his attention back to the laptop and the message on the screen. Taking a piece of paper, he scrawled it down and when Cougar stood up, once Jensen had been asleep for a couple of minutes, the two men made their way out of the room, so that they could talk without risking waking him again.

"He alright?"

"Si, just tired. Another good sleep and he will be recovered."

"I've never seen him this bad before!" Cougar just smiled softly and gave a small shrug in return and Pooch figured that meant that he had and that was why he knew how to handle Jensen and what to do to get him to sleep.

"The message?" Cougar reminded him.

Pooch held out the paper on which he had written. "'What do we need to do? We want his return. We are willing to talk.'"

It doesn't make sense!" Pooch said. "Why would they be willing to talk to us for 'his' return? Presumably 'he' is Alec . . ."

"Unless they think we took him," Cougar answered.

"In which case, where is he? Who does have him?" Pooch asked. The two men had no idea and no alternative, but to wait for Clay's return or Jensen to wake up.

* * *

><p>Luke napped; he didn't sleep anymore. Although they were keeping Alec's absence quiet, people were beginning to notice and comment, and 'on a supply run' wasn't going to keep the peace much longer, particularly as questions were being asked about what the outcome of his meeting with Clemente had been.<p>

Luke had helped Max make contact with the Lieutenant in secret and so they had the gist of the conversation that had transpired, which had been more to do with supplies of food and medical items than anything else, although some of the discussions with regard to Transgenics being allowed to work out in the world and how they could move towards achieving that goal were interesting as Clemente and Alec had begun to try and formulate a plan for improving the image of Transgenics with the rest of the populous. Clemente had no idea what had happened to Alec after their meeting and was apologetic that without risking it being leaked to the media, there was no way for him to help with trying to track Alec down, beyond offering advice.

Luke napped between shifts, still on-site, not even heading back to where he'd set up 'home', leaving strict instructions that at the first sign of the hacker the room was to be cleared and he would make contact. It was a relief when the call finally came. Luke sent a message to Max and went to see what was happening.

There was an open chat box on the screen of the console with the words, "Would like to talk to you."

Luke ensured there was no one else in the room, then typed, "I'm listening."

He watched as the words rapidly appeared in front of him, "You seem to think we have Alec. We don't. We wanted to talk with him."

"Why?"

"Served together. Wanted to make sure he was okay." Luke raised an eyebrow and wondered who he was talking to.

"And now . . .?"

"Tell us how to help."

"Help?"

"If he's in trouble, we're willing to help. Just tell us how. We're outside and can move relatively freely."

"How many of you are there?"

"Four."

"That all! If you're hackers how do you think you can help?"

"Not hackers. . . Or rather, only I am . . . it's a hobby, something to do when . . . let us help."

* * *

><p>Alec clung on to consciousness tenaciously, frightened that if he gave up this time, it would be the last. This wasn't re-indoctrination, it was just torture, just pain and he had so much of that right now that he barely felt as Wade slid the knife across his stomach again. Nothing deep enough to kill him on its own, but he was losing blood and he imagined that eventually that would see him out of this world.<p>

He distantly heard a door open, wished for it to be someone coming to save him, even though he knew it couldn't possibly be. He felt a stir of air across his now over-heated skin, his body compensating for the pain by ratcheting up his temperature regardless of the air. He cracked his eyes open a fraction and saw Wade a couple of steps further away than it felt he had been in hours.

"Oh Wade, such a glorious turmoil of inner essence. I think you might just have done your job well for once. He looks to me like he might just be ready. . ."

Alec tried to summon the energy to be concerned, to struggle, but he knew he was fading too fast. Whatever Max and Wade wanted to do to him, they'd get their way now. He couldn't fight it anymore. He saw as Max filled a syringe and didn't even think about what it might mean, watched as it was deliberately passed over him in his sightline to Wade, who flicked the syringe with a finger before depressing the plunger a fraction and letting the liquid inside drip onto an open wound with a gleam of excitement.

There was a pause as Wade appeared to be waiting for something. Suddenly, Alec felt where the liquid had landed begin to pulsate with pain. He screamed hoarsely, the last of his energy dissipating as he lost consciousness again to the prick of a needle in his neck.

* * *

><p>It was arranged; Jensen and Pooch would head to the rendez-vous, where they would meet with one Logan Cale. It wasn't going to be easy, but they staked out the area and located a nearby building from which Cougar would be able to provide some degree of cover; not as much as they were usually comfortable with, but then again, Jensen and Pooch were not going to be as unarmed as the request was presumably meant to imply. Well, they weren't carrying guns anyway. It was a lot of trust to put in people they didn't know, but Clay had his own plans and preparations, and they didn't include any of his men being hurt or him being unarmed.<p>

The two men sauntered down the street, taking careful observation of the neighborhood. It wasn't exactly luxurious, but they'd definitely seen worse. Pooch raised his eyes as they stopped at one of the larger buildings but also one of the more decrepit. "This is us," he said, looking round again, taking in where there was cover and where the potential threats might come from.

"Going in," Jensen said, clearly for the benefit of Clay who was listening in and not yet in sight of the building. "Who should I be this time?" he suddenly asked Pooch.

"Just be you this time," Pooch said exasperatedly, "No need to be anyone else." Jensen nodded before striding ahead determinedly. Pooch quickened his own pace so he was at the door alongside Jensen as Jensen began to knock.

It was a matter of moments before the door was opened and Logan Cale stood before them. "Hey," Jensen greeted, "Think you're expecting us."

The man looked up and down the street behind them, before giving them another thorough lookover. He stepped back. "Come in."

The house was dark and dingy as they entered, but the further back they went, the clearer and more modern it began to look. The furniture was scavenged but clean, paintings hanging on the walls and propped round the room at various points. "Wow! Artistic . . . you're quite prolific with the paintings," Jensen said trying to break the ice.

"They're not mine, they're Joshua's. Alec had some idea about trying to sell them or something. . . All well and good, but it's not his place they're cluttering up."

"So Joshua is Alec's friend . . . a Transgenic? Who'd have thought the military would have created the artistic types . . . I wonder what they thought they'd get out of that. . ."

"Not exactly. Joshua was the first, before the military got involved, so . . . " Logan sighed and said, "Look, I don't know what you want, but if I think you're stirring up any trouble for Max, then I'm pulling the plug and whatever trouble Alec has got himself in this time, he can get himself out of it without our help."

Jensen's hand snatched at Pooch's arm, holding him back as the other man reacted to the name, Max. "You were a friend of the transgenic leader, Max, when she was outside?" Jensen asked, as much for the information as to reassure Pooch that this wasn't their Max they were talking about. Pooch relaxed a little, keeping his posture and expression less threatening, but Logan had turned away and hadn't seen the potential threat.

Logan crossed to a bank of computers, much better looking than the exterior and entrance to the house would have suggested. "Yeah, look, sit down and I'll get her on the line." He waved absently at a couple of chairs that had been pulled up.

Pooch watched as Jensen's eyes ran appraisingly over the computer set-up, saw as he suddenly tilted his head and squinted at Logan's profile, seemed to lean to try and see more of the front of his face, before his eyes widened in momentary shock and he straightened up and leant back in the chair, trying to appear nonchalant. There was no time to try and work out what Jensen was thinking before Logan turned round again, saying, "Luke's just adjusting the camera on that end so you can all talk." He pulled his chair out from the computer console a little and gestured them to move in closer.

"Hey," came a somewhat friendlier voice through the computer, "I'm Luke." Jensen and Pooch returned the greeting, hiding their surprise at the unexpected face before them. "Is one of you the hacker?"

"Umm, guess so," Jensen admitted reluctantly, surprised by the enthusiastic approval his confession elicited. Moments later Luke was joined by the young girl they were both familiar with from the news broadcasts and a tall figure with long shaggy hair and as he turned to face them, folding himself down onto a chair and coming fully into their view on the other side, Jensen and Pooch saw he had a distinctly canine slant to his features. Luke went through the formalities at his end of introducing Max and Joshua and Jensen reciprocated, throwing in a compliment about the paintings they had seen so far which clearly delighted the Transgenic.

They began to talk about Alec, first covering how Pooch and Jensen had known him and then going onto the fact that he was missing, and all that they knew about that situation which amounted to little more than knowing the day and an approximation of the time he vanished, based on the information from Clemente about the time he had left and the time he had been expected at Logan's.

It wasn't much to go on, but it was something and at least now they were working together.

* * *

><p>The first thing Alec was aware of was pain, pain inside burning through his veins, into every part of him, throbbing, pulsating and unremitting. He tried to move only to have the pain flare higher and he choked back a cry because that hurt too. He felt it as tears leaked from his eyes, burning down over his cheeks.<p>

"I have a proposition for you . .." Alec cracked his eyes open, wincing at the light, as his gaze settled on Max. "I have two syringes here. One will take away the pain you're in and the other will make it worse. You agree to help me and I'll take the pain away . . . or I could make it worse," he smiled smugly.

"Fuck you!" Alec croaked hoarsely.

"You sure that's your decision, because I can pretty much guarantee you're going to regret it?"

"Fuck you." Alec didn't have the energy to think of any other response, dreading the thought of what was to come and hoping that he would lose consciousness again quickly.

Max sighed, "Wade . . ." He held out a syringe, watched as Wade injected Alec and then said, "Oh, yeah, maybe I should have told you before. . . There's a stimulant in this one that will keep you from losing consciousness . . . We'll be back later to see if you've re-evaluated your position."

It took a moment for the drugs to kick in and Alec felt it as the pain began to increase, moment by moment, liquid fire coursing through his veins. He bit his lip and tried to resist the urge to scream. The pain got worse, his teeth broke through the barely dried split in his lip from earlier, and blood began to course down his cheeks, burning him from the outside in to accompany the pain already racing round his insides.

* * *

><p>They left with little new information but with the reassurance that for the most part they could trust the transgenics or at least the ones they'd spoken to, although neither Pooch nor Jensen really felt like they trusted Cale. In Pooch's case it was less anything concrete about the man, more a sense that he disliked Alec and would be quite happy to ignore that he had gone missing. Something was clearly bothering Jensen about the man, which didn't really relieve any of Pooch's concern, but Jensen said nothing and seemed to be thinking something through as he was unusually quiet as they walked away. Pooch left him to his thoughts and so they walked in silence.<p>

Back at the motel, they congregated in Jensen's room with take out and began to discuss what they had achieved and what they would do next. Having got locations for Alec's meeting with Lieutenant Clemente and Logan's house, they knew his last known whereabouts and his apparent destination. It was decided that Cougar and Pooch would examine maps of the surrounding areas to decide on likely routes that he might have followed, while Jensen worked out how to hack the hover drone system in place in Seattle. "So have we learnt anything else?" Clay asked.

"Er . . . kind of . . ." All eyes turned to Jensen. He shifted slightly in his seat. "Cale is Eyes Only." When the rest of the team just looked at him, he clarified, "The cyber-journalist, Eyes Only. The one who was in contact with Lydecker."

"You think he's sold Alec out to Lydecker? He certainly didn't seem to be sorry he was missing."

Jensen shrugged, "I'll check his system as well."

Clay sighed, "Right, Jensen, do what you can, but . . . not at the expense of you . . . we find him, we're going to need you then. Do not knock yourself out now and leave us short when we need you!" He'd been angry when he got back to hear from Pooch and Cougar just how far Jensen had driven himself while he'd been away, but he knew better than to blame Jensen. He'd given the order, not expecting it to be as problematic as it had turned out to be, and he knew Jensen. He should have thought through and covered all the possible bases before giving the order.

* * *

><p>By the time, Pooch and Cougar had worked out the different routes that Alec was most likely to have taken, and had then gone down to try them out for themselves for on-the-ground Intel, Jensen had established that Logan Cale appeared to have had nothing to do with Alec's disappearance. He'd also had time to work out how to hack the hover drone systems and find the stored information that had relayed as they made their circuits through the streets of Seattle. All he needed now was to know which files needed closer examination.<p>

* * *

><p>Alec lay panting shallowly, trying to move as little as possible. He hurt. Everywhere. Inside and Out.<p>

Whatever this was, whatever the purpose, this was something even Manticore had never prepared him for.

Alec was quiet, voice cracked and broken from the screaming. He lay waiting, knowing that he couldn't keep this up. He couldn't go through this again. If Max offered him a deal, he'd have to listen. It was that or die. His heart was slowing now, nearer normal but not there yet; earlier he'd felt every tachycardic thump of his heart, terrified that if it got any faster, any harder, he wouldn't survive.

The door opened and Max came in just as Alec began to seize.

* * *

><p>Jensen had found the files he needed. Now it was just a matter of eliminating the dross and redefining his parameters to filter just the smallest number he could in the hope that he would find Alec in there.<p>

He sat back and began to watch the video feed for the first drone that Alec might have met after leaving Clemente. Ten minutes of watching and he saw Alec walking down the street cellphone in hand as he appeared to be dialling someone's number, and then talking with them as he walked. He wasn't in sight of the drone for long, but it was enough for Jensen to be able to discard the first two side streets as being part of the route to Logan's that he'd taken. He reset the parameters and filtered the files again.

He wasn't so lucky the second time. He'd tried fast forwarding but realized it was too easy to miss someone who might be Alec coming in or out of a doorway just as the hover drone passed. It was taking too much time to try and rewind and re-watch; it was easier to just watch at normal speed. He sat through an hour and half, picking his way through one street after another, watching the film until he was almost definite that Alec could not have taken so long to reach that point. There was always the possibility that Alec had been taken between one record and the next, but Jensen wasn't ready to make that assumption yet.

Sudden recognition of another figure in the image was enough to worry him about their own safety in Seattle but it had nothing to do with Alec. He marked the time interval and knew he would show it to Clay later.

He caught sight of Alec a short while after that, still alone, still walking, although he kept looking over his shoulder as if aware of someone following him. Jensen watched as he turned a corner and vanished from sight. He noted on the map beside him which street he'd taken and kept watching to see if there was any clue as to who the pursuer might be. He was surprised to see the same figure he had recognized earlier wander into frame again. Jensen was sure it was just coincidence when he took the same street as Alec. It had to be . . . didn't it?


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_"It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." (Shakespeare)_

"Work for me," Max said simply. "You might be Transgenic filth, but at least you could be useful Transgenic filth for a while." Alec laid still, breath coming in slight hitches, terrified.

Max held up the two syringes again. "Fuck you," Alec rasped and Max smiled.

"How many bouts do you think you'll survive, 494?" Alec looked away, only to hear Max laugh at his feeble attempt at rebellion. "Wade, 494 thinks he can take another dose . . ."

Wade stepped closer, but before he took the syringe, he undid the straps on all of the restraints. Alec twitched feebly but didn't have any real control over his muscles. His head fell to the side and his eyes tracked slowly, following the movement of Wade's hands as he brought the syringe close and then it entered the skin on his arm.

The effects came quicker this time and within moments the agony was renewed, and Alec felt as his heart rate began to increase. "Help me!" he choked. "Help me!" His body tightened as if ready to seize again but instead held on the brink, all the pain accumulating and accumulating, the intensity swelling. "Help," he rasped again.

"He wants help, Wade."

"Should I give it to him?"

Max stepped into Alec's line of sight with the second syringe. "Okay, so we know you want this, but do you agree to work for us? You can't be expecting something for nothing, after all." Max's voice was bland.

Alec knew he had no choice left as with difficulty he agreed to Max's demand, watched as Wade took the second syringe and began to insert it into his arm. The intensity flared even higher for a moment and then steadily began to decrease.

This kind of defeat was sickening and Alec curled onto his side with difficulty and lay waiting for the pain to pass, for death to come or the world to end. He knew that when his Max saw him next, the best he could hope for was that she would see Ben; more likely she'd see him as worse.

* * *

><p>Jensen called the others in to see the footage when he noticed it for the third time. "If you watch here," he explained, "Alec turns the corner and if you count . . ." there was a pause as they kept their eyes on the screen. "There!" Jensen said, "It's Wade. This is the third time he's followed Alec round a corner at exactly the same number of seconds distance. I think Wade is tailing Alec."<p>

"Why?"

"He's a Transgenic," Jensen answered. "Seriously Clay, think about it. Max wants weapons, war, chaos. What better way to achieve that than with an army of supersoldiers?"

"But even for Max, it's risky to take one of the supposed 'leaders' of the Transgenic Nation. Surely it would make more sense to kidnap some who aren't going to be plastered all over the news as missing."

"But that's it; it's not all over the papers. Nobody knows and if they did the only reason they'd care was for fear of what Max might do with them, what he might use them for. If they think he's taking them to kill them or lock them up, ready to use next time we need a bunch of disposable soldiers, how many ordinary human citizens are going to object to that? They're not. It's killing two birds with one stone, keeping the Transgenics under control and off the streets, and sending less of our 'normal' soldiers into combat. You think the general population is going to have a problem with that?"

Pooch added, "He has a good point there, Clay."

"Okay, okay . . . But he's only taken Alec . . . it's hardly an army of supersoldiers."

There was a moment where they all considered the possibilities. "Alec is the start of it," Cougar said quietly.

The others looked at him and he shrugged. Pooch began to nod, "Maybe, maybe he's taken Alec so he can learn how to control them. If he wasn't part of Manticore, he wouldn't know."

"The stuff I found, and from talking to Joshua and Luke this morning, Manticore would re-indoctrinate their soldiers, brainwash them into thinking differently, forgetting things . . . Max might know how. When we find him, he might not be the Alec they were talking about," Jensen's voice rose.

Clay cut him off, "Don't think like that. We find him and we get him back. If he's changed then we deal with it, but it's not going to change getting him back. We do that first. You know where they were when they took him?"

"Not yet. I've only tracked him this far. It's not easy knowing which feeds to look at, and it's going to be harder, because if you look, he knows he's being followed. I think he's going to try to lose Wade."

* * *

><p>Jensen resumed his watching of the video feeds with just Cougar at his side, the two of them scanning the picture constantly for signs of Alec or Wade. They'd tracked Alec's progress through the city, and realized that he'd given up on heading for Logan and was now just concentrating on losing the tail. It took them another two hours to find what they were looking for. Alec had rounded one corner and sped up, running rapidly into a nearby alley. Moments later, Wade stood at the end of the alley, before speaking into a radio. He then followed Alec into the darkness.<p>

Cougar looked at the map and said, "It's a dead end."

So they waited. The hover drone moved away and then returned and they couldn't be sure they hadn't missed something as it had moved, but this was possibly the last view of Alec, they had to hope that they could get something more from it. A black nondescript van pulled up at the end of the alley and moments later, Wade reappeared with Alec slung over his shoulder. Cougar and Jensen both winced as they watched him shift Alec's position, ready to throw him in the back of the van, and catch his head in a glancing blow against the roof of the vehicle and then the door. Max followed them out of the alley and got into a limousine which pulled up behind the van, then the two vehicles quickly pulled away and rejoined the traffic.

* * *

><p>Joshua watched as Max paced back and forth, waiting for the connection to be made with the Team outside. They called themselves The Losers and Luke had researched what he could of their past. Max wasn't certain they could be trusted, but there was still no word about Alec. Clemente had refused to meet with her in case she was taken as well. These ex-Army men who had known Alec in the past were his best chance and she wasn't sure it would be anything like enough.<p>

The Police Captain had been firm about her responsibilities to all of the Transgenics, not just Alec. It was hard to sit back without doing anything but Clemente was right; it was more than Alec's life at stake. He'd agreed to put one of his men, a man he trusted and who felt the same as he did about the Transgenics and their right to be heard, on to the case, trying to find out more, but it was one man with no real idea where to start and it wasn't like Max could be entirely honest. She couldn't give him Logan's location, so he had no idea which direction Alec had been heading.

The hacker, who both Luke and Joshua seemed to be very taken with, both of them far more relaxed with him than they ever were with Logan, had made contact asking for another conversation. He and Luke were just putting the finishing touches to their security measures. Luke had assured her it was fine, probably even more secure than the link they were used to using with Logan.

She'd been surprised that they all seemed to prefer to leave Logan out of the loop. It should make this easier, but instead it just added another layer of guilt. It was another obstacle that would keep them apart, and she couldn't help the relief that it was something that she didn't need to deal with now. Alec deserved her attention for the time being.

She looked up from her pacing as Joshua called her name and waved to a chair and the screen. She moved across as the picture finally flickered into life. There was Jensen, chatting away with Luke while they waited. It was interesting there was no sign of the other man, Pooch, who had been with him when he visited Logan. Instead there was an older man, his face stern looking as he waited, although there was a softness around his eyes that made her think there was more to him than military bearing.

"Hey Max," Jensen greeted. "Sight for sore eyes. This is Clay, and we have some news and some more questions." The words spilled out quickly, and Clay relaxed a little as if this was familiar, listening to Jensen talk.

"Good to meet you, sir, but shouldn't that be Lieutenant Colonel?" she prompted.

"Not anymore. It's been a long time that we've been out of the Army. It's good to speak to you, I wish circumstances were different. Gentlemen," Clay acknowledged the presence of Joshua and Luke at her side, nodding as she introduced them. "Like Jensen said, we have some leads but we also have more questions as well. Shall we start? I believe time is of the essence."

"You know where he is?"

The look the two men shared before answering was enough to start her heart pounding. "We know who took him. Not quite the same thing and not good enough by far," Clay answered as Jensen tapped a few keys on his laptop and their image was replaced by two grainy photographs. "Do you know either of these men?"

Max glanced at them quickly and shook her head, "No, never seen them before. "

The pictures vanished just as Joshua started to speak, "Not the same, but that one looks like White."

Max frowned and Jensen clearly took it as a sign to put the pictures back on the screen. She looked closer, following Joshua's finger and considering what he'd said. It wasn't White, not even close, but there was a certain . . . similarity. "The one on the right, who is he?" she demanded.

"His name's Wade, mercenary type, works for the guy on the left who goes by the name of Max, but that's more of a code name than anything that's necessarily real. So who's White?"

"What would they want with Alec?" Max persisted.

"You tell me. Now who's White and why might he be connected?"

* * *

><p>Dark or Light, the flicker of bulbs on and off, in and out, the hum of the fluorescent tube. Cold . . . breeze . . . air moving as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Time ebbed and flowed incomprehensibly and Alec felt tired; weary and more. Nothing made sense, not who he was, where he was; his only connection the two men, Max and Wade.<p>

Alec didn't think the wait was long before Max and Wade returned, the pain was waning but not gone and he felt . . . distant, apart from his body, like he didn't quite have full control of . . . he wasn't sure what, he thought as his mind wandered again. His mind seemed to be drifting in a haze as if he were waiting for some trigger something to make the world make sense.

Max . . . his gaze settled on the man in front of him and he frowned. That wasn't right, Max wasn't supposed to look like that . . . Max was . . . shorter, long hair . . . a girl! He wondered for a moment why his mind wanted to pin the name on the figure before him or why he thought it fit a girl either. He was sure this was Max and the quieter man alongside was Wade and Alec felt a sudden urge to cower away from Wade, a half memory of pain tickling at the edges of his conscious thought.

"How are things going there, 494?"

Alec tried to turn round looking to see who Max was talking to. There was no one there, which meant . . . Suddenly he realized Max was talking to him. Why was he/she calling him that? He bit his lip as he tried to remember.

Max smiled, but there was nothing kind or gentle in it. "So . . . 494, I offered you a choice . . . two syringes – one brings pain, one brings relief . . . do you remember that?" Alec nodded, eyes wide and fearful, he didn't remember completely, but pain . . . pain, he remembered the pain. "Now you've been letting me down of late . . ."

Alec wasn't sure what he'd done wrong this time, but Max . . . Max was annoyed, that wasn't good . . . His finger tapped his anxiety out on the bed alongside where he lay. Wade moved. Alec flinched, sitting up suddenly and almost losing his balance falling off the bed as his head spun. He snapped his eyes shut and tried to settle himself. His eyes were only shut for a moment before he opened them again just as suddenly trying to see and focus on Max and Wade.

Wade's face was bland, Alec couldn't decide on the actual expression's meaning but Max . . . There was a predatory gleam there; it made Alec think of pain and fear. He waited, unsure. Max stepped closer and Alec swallowed nervously. "X5-494 . . .quite a sight . . . Are you ready to work?"

Wade stepped closer again and with a quick glance at Max for approval, he leaned in and shouted, "Hit the ground, soldier and give me thirty!"

Alec paused, this wasn't right, something about it wasn't right, but he couldn't quite grasp . . . "Did you hear me, 494?" Wade yelled and for a moment, Alec knew it wasn't right; this wasn't his Max, he had no idea who Wade was and . . . the Conclave, Familiars, Manticore was gone, he was free . . . he was free.

Wade grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him off the bed and throwing him to the floor, looming over him threateningly, shouting words that blurred and slipped away. Instinct kicked in and Alec lashed out, leg swinging furiously round, trying to knock Wade off his feet. The heavier man dropped, throwing his weight down onto Alec's prone form, banging Alec's head on the hard concrete of the floor in the process.

Alec stirred dazed, trying to dislodge Wade's weight futilely at first until a memory slithered of himself fighting, drill after drill, fight after fight, war zones with gun fire, fighting cages . . . Memories bombarding him as he struggled to resist until they began to make some sense. He lashed out fists flying and felt pain resurge through him. It was the work of moments for Wade to have him pinned and to be injecting him again. There was no stopping the surge of pain that coursed through him burning. He opened his mouth to scream, and there was nothing but a choked off gasp, no sound.

As the pain took over, Alec stopped fighting, instead beginning to arch and twist futilely. Wade pushed himself up and away from where Alec lay on the floor, kicking him again before standing back with Max to watch as Alec writhed in agony.

They waited, Wade with disinterest, while Max's eyes gleamed with fascination and enjoyment. Time ticked by until finally Max spoke and said, "Give him the other one now."

Wade kicked Alec, watching as the young Transgenic rolled over closer to the wall. He forced Alec backwards until he had him pinned, then dropped down to stop his movements as much as he could. He administered the second shot and wondered how many more times he would have to do this. Alec seemed to be losing himself more each time, taking longer and longer for the resistance to kick in and for Alec to fight back.

It may not have been Manticore's own Re-indoctrination procedure, but it seemed to be achieving the same result slowly.

* * *

><p>Clay was the one to respond to the whoop of excitement from behind the closed door. He'd sent Pooch and Cougar out – one stir-crazy hacker was more than enough for a team without adding anyone else into the mix. He opened the door cautiously, peering in ready to snap his eyes closed at anything he really didn't want to see.<p>

Jensen was clothed, great relief and was beaming happily while chanting "Got ya now, bitches . . . Ha! The power of my mind, I have super sneaky, tracking powers and ya can't escape from me."

"Jensen?" Clay interrupted, making the hacker jerk to a halt in surprise and turn to face him, grin getting almost unbelievably broader.

"I did it! I did it! I did it!" Jensen announced proudly. "I found 'em. Look see, here . . . You don't want to know the whole boring long-winded explanation, but here," he pointed at the screen, "this is where Max and Wade are holding Alec. And I found them!"

"That's good. Take a break and then you can find out about the inside for me." When Jensen looked about to object, Clay continued, "Eat. You're hungry, I can hear your stomach through the closed door, even if you can't!"

Jensen seemed to consider that point for a moment before pushing back from the keyboard and standing. Clay watched silently as Jensen seemed to consider his own body, before finally realizing that Clay was right, he was hungry. Clay wondered how it worked that Jensen could so effectively cut himself off from his own body to such an extent that the rest of the team seemed to know his body better than he did.

* * *

><p>By the time Cougar and Pooch returned, Jensen had got floor plans for the building and a basic outline of security measures. It was impressive, but still barely enough to contemplate going in. There was no question in anyone's mind that they would though, regardless of the danger. Not one of them was willing to consider that Alec could be left there.<p>

It took a while before they came up with a plan that they thought might be vaguely workable. They'd had to admit that they couldn't hope to take on Max and get Alec out alive. Jensen's information had shown that security doubled when he was there, and so it seemed wise to plan to keep watch and to take the building on just after he and Wade had departed.

Pooch put forward the suggestion that perhaps they needed to speak to the Transgenics to check they had a medic inside Terminal City who would be prepared in case Alec had been hurt. The others agreed, until Cougar said, "No. It will take time to get him back inside. We need someone out here."

It was true. They needed someone they could get to easily. They had no idea what to expect. Alec could be fine and just being held or he could have been hurt and, if that was the case, they had no idea of the degree of injury he might be carrying. They were wary of getting hopes inside Terminal City up too much, but when Jensen made contact they did admit they had a lead that they were exploring and that, just as a safeguard, they wanted to know if there was someone they could contact outside for medical help.

Max gave him the contact details for Dr Sam Carr and told them to let her know as soon as they were sure of anything.

* * *

><p>Clay made the initial contact with Sam Carr, making an appointment to go in to see the doctor in person as if he were a regular patient. He chatted away about this and that with Dr Carr trying to get a feel for the trustworthiness of the man, ignoring the man's repeated attempts to get to the point.<p>

Clay decided the man seemed honorable and so he began to explain the truth behind his visit. Sam Carr nodded his understanding of the situation as he seemed to be considering what might be needed. As Clay finished talking, he asked when they were expecting to take action and where they were hoping to take Alec. He saw Clay's momentary hesitation and jumped in to try and reassure him, "Look, if he's been hurt, you need access to a medic quickly, that's why you're here. Transgenics have tremendous healing capabilities but they do need the right treatment at the right time or things turn bad quickly. You've got no idea whether he's hurt or not, I would say the likelihood is that will be the case. He's been held for too much time with no contact for this to be a hostage situation in which someone was going to demand a ransom. He's not been turned over to either the military or the police as a Transgenic on the loose, so they've got to have some other reason for having him."

Clay could see the logic. Sam Carr continued, "I don't know what you know about what went on in Manticore, but re-indoctrination was not uncommon . . . If the people you're talking about have any connection with the old Manticore, they could be trying to re-indoctrinate him. The damage they knew how to inflict on X5s in particular to control them . . . I'd like to be on standby, available. I don't want you to have to call me and wait for me to get to you, and for it to be too late. . . Alec's being doing a good job at integrating X5s, at liaising with authorities and making progress. He's been in contact with me in attempts to get some sort of medical assistance program for all of the people trapped in Terminal City. He's important to this whole fiasco having any prospect of a peaceful resolution, and the Transgenics finding any sort of acceptance."

Clay understood what the man was saying, but at the same time he was still wary of putting his own men or the mission in jeopardy. Sam Carr sighed, "Okay, look. How about I offer this to you? I'm off work for the next two days. I have no plans, no one is expecting me . . . Kidnap me. I'll go with you now; I'll walk willing to your car with some medical supplies. You can drive me out of here, blindfold me and take me wherever you need to. Then you can keep me there, no contact with anyone and you can bring Alec to me there."

"You'd do that?" Clay sounded surprised.

"If it means he's looked after, and it means the Transgenics have a hope at a real future, yes, I'll do it." Sam didn't look happy about it, but he also didn't give any indication that he was about to change his mind and withdraw the offer.

Clay nodded, "Okay, not quite so extreme. We'll go from here now to wherever you live, get you what you need for a weekend with us. I will ask that you don't have contact with anyone else, but more because I can't risk someone else tracking you, not that I think you're going to give us away. We'll get you whatever you want, whatever you need, but you'll stay with us. You'll come with us; not into where we believe he's being held, but to outside. We're not going to risk your life any more than necessary, but if there's any possibility that he's been hurt as badly as you're implying, we can't waste time getting him even as far as our safe house without getting him help."

Sam Carr nodded, already reaching to pack up what was on his desk. He stood and moved round his office gathering general supplies before going over to a secured locker. He fished a key from his pocket and began to collect a variety of medications from inside before closing and locking the door again. "Okay, I'm done . . ." He reached for a prescription pad from his desk, throwing that into his bag. "Just in case."

Clay stood and headed for the door, "Tell me where we're heading."

* * *

><p>Alec shivered. He was burning inside, but he was cold as well. Somewhere in his mind he knew that shouldn't be possible, but he couldn't keep track. There was pain. He hurt. Wherever he contacted the surface below him, it hurt. He tried to think back, thought that maybe he'd agreed to something, something that meant the pain would stop . . . he couldn't have because it hadn't stopped. If they offered again, this time he'd have to say yes . . . he'd have to do what they asked because he couldn't survive this.<p>

Suddenly the door opened and Alec tried to turn to look. Brief memories filtered through of defensive and offensive stances to take, but he didn't have the energy to move far enough for either. "Hello there, 494." There were two sets of feet beside him, one in shiny polished black Oxfords, so clean Alec could almost see his own reflection in them. The other had a pair of practical combat boots, clean but dull, reaching up to mid-calf and tightly laced. Alec vaguely wondered which owner of the feet was speaking to him, but it hurt too much to turn and look.

One of the laced boots lifted from the ground and nudged into his side. He'd watched it, knew it didn't really classify as a kick, yet the pain was intense. He felt himself fall to his side and the pain ratcheted up even further. He moaned out his pain in a choked gasp.

"Well, well, 494 . . . where's the fight gone? Wade, kick him!"

Alec saw one of the combat boots draw back, tried to pull away, to tense his stomach muscles, anything to brace for the impact. The boot connected with his shoulder, throwing his body backward and smashing his head against the wall behind him. Alec felt his vision waver, then felt as his limbs began to tremble, knew in that instant that a seizure was about to hit, but before he could do anything his hair was grabbed, pulling his head to one side, giving his attacker clear access to his neck, and he felt as another shot sunk in, directing hot fire into his whole being. The pain hit just ahead of the seizure taking hold, everything intensifying into a world of flames and excruciating agony. He felt as his breath shortened and the world blackened at the edges, and he prayed for respite but none came as the torment went on and on and on.

* * *

><p>Sam Carr sat quietly as the Losers made the last of their preparations. He didn't want to admit to the fear that was crawling inside his belly at the thought of what he'd agreed to and what was about to happen. In truth, the Transgenics and Logan had brought nothing but trouble into his life since the first time Logan had him treat Max. He'd been subjected to raids and interrogations and countless investigations into his practise. He still stuck by his Hippocratic oath and the fact that the Transgenics were human and deserved treatment, decent good quality medical treatment, better than he could offer them, but the reality was that even he might be more than many of them could get.<p>

It didn't take away the fear that while this might be the 'right' thing to do morally, he was way out of his depth, and making the biggest and possibly last mistake of his life. He thought of Alec, thought of the cocky grin, the don't give a damn about anyone but me attitude that he'd had when they first met. That had been an attitude that would have put plenty of people off, but Sam had seen it didn't take much of a scratch to the surface to reveal the reality of the man below, a man who was far less obnoxious, much more caring, and would make tremendous sacrifices for people he thought of as friends. He remembered treating him for something relatively minor, it was something that cared for properly a Transgenic would heal from with ease, but the Transgenics were holed up in Terminal City and were living in filth. Alec hadn't told anyone, had tried to deal with it alone, but when he knew it was too bad to keep trying to manage, Alec had sought him out and asked if there was anything that could be done. That had really brought home just how much he was having to cope with, how Alec had insisted that he not tell Max or Logan about the injury, and when he'd pressed to find out more, Alec had finally admitted it had been treated with what they had available and he didn't want to worry them that in fact it hadn't healed.

It was a sign of what was to come for too many of the Transgenics, he admitted, and so they had begun to work together to devise a plan for getting help and supplies into Terminal City with Clemente to stop more of the Transgenics falling ill. Sam wondered if Max even suspected that Alec had got so far and done so much.

He used those thoughts to bolster his own courage. "Hey man." He looked up, internal thoughts broken as Pooch sat down beside him, a look of concern on his face. "I know this is kind of out of your . . ."

"Comfort zone?" Sam asked, "Way outside . . . Never was one for adventures, but mixing with Transgenics seems to do that to my life. Look, it's my choice, okay? I'm here to help Alec. You guys are here to do your job . Don't worry about me."

"We do . . . worry . . ." As Sam started to interrupt to say he'd keep out of the way, Pooch cut him off and said, "No, we worry because we wouldn't want to put anyone in this position . . . but this could be nasty – way beyond field med training . . . We wouldn't do this by choice but we'll protect you with our lives, that's a promise from all of us." He waved a hand at the two other men in the room at the time. Sam looked across at Jensen and Cougar and saw them nod in agreement.

As Clay came back into the room, the others picked up the final things they needed. "Okay, Losers, let's move out. Dr Carr . . ."


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_"Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world" (The Talmud)_

Wade was mildly concerned, not on any degree of personal level, but if the X5 was supposed to be an asset, a tool and even remotely useful, he was vaguely concerned that perhaps this line of action was damaging the goods. Then again, he didn't really care, if Max killed it, it was done and dusted and he wouldn't have to dirty his hands with that particular piece of Transgenic filth anymore.

The Transgenic in question was still seizing on the floor at that point, which meant that Wade could stand back and watch. It was amazing how normal it looked until it was like this, now it was all weak, feeble and . . . animal. It wasn't human.

Wade looked at Max, saw the intense fascination in his eyes and the sadistic gleam at watching the creature's suffering. Wade resigned himself to the fact that this wasn't going to be over any time soon.

* * *

><p>When Max finally decided it was time for 494 to have the second shot, the Transgenic's breath was shallow, his heart rate high and his movements slow and uncoordinated. Even taking away the pain wasn't going to make him of any use to them for the foreseeable future.<p>

Wade watched as 494's eyes blinked and struggled to focus. "Better?" he asked absently.

494 gave a weak nod, a whispered "Yes." Wade nodded and reached for a bottle of water, holding it out to the prone Transgenic. 494 attempted to move to balance himself against the wall, but couldn't coordinate. With a sigh, Wade bent down and turned him, lifting him to lean back against the wall and rest. He put the bottle into his hand and helped support it as he drank.

494's eyes met his and he mouthed the word, "Thank you," not enough energy left to try and talk past his ravaged throat.

"Oh, so sweet. I think the little animal likes you, Wade. Do you want him as a pet?" Max's sneering words had the X5 dropping his head again in defeat. "There's just so much pleasure to be had in watching someone else's pain, you know. Plus, of course, there's the added benefit of getting one over on Ames . . . After all the money and time the Conclave have sunk into that jumped up little sleaze ball, he's failed continually to actually deliver any information of use about the X5s. Now we've got one right where we want it . . . I bet we could ask it anything and it would answer us now."

"I doubt it somehow," Wade said drily. "Right now, he couldn't string three words together audibly, let alone tell you anything."

"_It,_" Max weighted the word heavily, "already told us that this works . . ." He held up another syringe. "Okay, we need to find another method of administering it unless . . . already it will try to do just about anything we tell it. It knows we hold the antidote and it knows the pain comes back when it doesn't get a dose so now we hold it to ransom; it does what we tell it or we don't let it have the next dose. Simple. So simple in fact that I don't think even you could mess it up." Max turned to walk out before glancing back over his shoulder at Wade and adding, "Oh and Wade, it stinks in here, hose it down before we attract any other types of vermin. This one's bad enough."

There were times when Wade found the petty one-upmanship of the inner families of the Conclave irritating beyond belief. For the most part, Max seemed to be more driven by his own paltry interests of world domination rather than any great desire to further the cause of the Conclave or its Familiars. Wade had more or less turned his back on them all after one too many missions gone badly, when his star had not only ceased to climb, but had come plummeting back to the ground amid scandal and demotion. He'd not completely burnt his bridges; after all, there was no telling when it might prove useful to be able to call on the connections, but he'd found his own line of work and only relayed information back when it seemed particularly pertinent to the Cause. It had been enough to credit him with a little good favour should he ever need it.

* * *

><p>Jensen moved first, knowing that Cougar was tracking his movements closely. He heard the dull thud of a body falling just ahead of him, beyond the end of the container he was skirting and knew that Cougar had to have taken out a guard.<p>

They didn't have long. Jensen had been tracking the site, and seen that Max and Wade's visits seemed to be getting closer together. It meant that they needed to act soon before something changed. They were as confident as they could be that Alec was on the inside; they couldn't risk him being moved.

Jensen ducked low as he ran for the next cover. Clay was coming in from a different angle, between them they would breach enough of the security and take out the guards before drawing attention to themselves. Cougar would join them once they were ready to enter the building.

Pooch was with Dr Carr in the transport for the minute, but again as soon as they had taken out enough of the external guards, he'd start work on getting the gate open and moving in closer as well. Time was of the essence.

"I'm at the door, Clay. How're things on your side?" Jensen said hurriedly.

"Start your entry, I'll be with you soon. Cougar, time to move!"

It took mere minutes for the three of them to assemble inside and begin to move through the corridors. Cougar and Clay worked on taking down the remaining guards as quietly as possible while Jensen broke through each of the electronic security barriers. They headed deeper and deeper into the complex, searching each level quickly but thoroughly before moving on.

An increase in the amount of secured doors to pass through was the first clue that they were getting closer to their objective. Surprisingly, there was a decrease in the number of guards. They moved efficiently covering each other silently, clearing each corridor quickly before continuing onward.

It was Pooch who broke the silence, "Shit! Clay, trouble . . . Max and Wade are just pulling in outside! They're heading your way."

"Fuck! That's all we need. Come on, we've got to move quicker!"

Jensen rounded the next corner and started on the first door as Cougar moved onto the second, Clay standing back to provide as much cover for both as he could. Jensen's door opened first, revealing nothing inside, so he ran past where Cougar was just finishing on the second and started work on the third door.

He wasn't sure but he thought he heard a slight sound of movement from inside, but when he stopped to check, there was nothing. Spurred on, he hurried to open the lock quicker and Cougar had barely cleared the previous room before he was forcing the door open and getting the first sight of a figure crumpled in the corner of the room. "Shit! Clay! Got someone . . ." Jensen moved forward as Clay followed him into the room and Cougar kept watch at the door.

Jensen hurried over to the figure, stunned as the man tried to cower further away. He stopped, dropped to his knees, trying to appear less threatening. "Hey, hey, it's okay." As the man before him shifted, Jensen could make out just enough of his face to know that it was Alec. Amid the bruises and blood, he had found Alec.

He looked back over his shoulder at Clay and said, "It's him." He saw as both Cougar and Clay's faces dropped in horror. Jensen turned his attention back to Alec. "Alec, we've come to get you out."

Alec still wouldn't look up, but he shook his head, a hoarse whispered, "No, no, no!" Jensen reached out to gently touch his shoulder, unprepared for the broken cry of pain.

"Clay! Wade and Max are heading for the main entrance. They're heading for you. You need to get out. Now!" Pooch's voice came through urgently.

"You heard him, we've got to go. Jensen, can you get him on his feet? If you can get him out, Cougar and I will cover."

"On it. Come on, Alec, help me out here, dude." He slipped an arm round Alec's back, pulling him upward. He realized immediately that he wasn't going to be getting any help at all. Alec couldn't have stood up on his own if his life depended on it, which ironically enough it did. "Shit! Okay, okay, we can do this." Jensen bent his knees, shifted his hold on Alec's waist and hoisted him up and onto his shoulder, ignoring both the sob of pain and the possibility of causing any more damage to Alec.

Clay and Cougar shared a concerned look, but Jensen just responded with, "Come on, this is the only choice. We have to get out of here, right? So, let's move!"

"Pooch, how many with Max?" Clay demanded.

"Not as many as expected, he obviously wasn't expecting trouble when he got here. He's taken two in with him and Wade and left three up here, but as soon as he realizes that the security is compromised he's going to be calling for back up, so you need to get out here quickly. I can deal with the three up here, just hurry!"

* * *

><p>Cougar cleared the end of the corridor, making sure the way was clear for Jensen to follow. Clay hung back making sure no one came round the far end of the corridor towards them until the others were almost to the next intersection. As he followed, he realized Jensen and Alec were leaving a trail of blood behind them that would make tracking them easy. He rushed up closer, knowing he needed to staunch the blood. He put his hand out to stop Jensen, saw the younger man turn. "He's bleeding, Jensen. You're leaving a trail behind you that's clear as . . ."<p>

"Shit!" He stopped, tried to lower Alec's body to work out where the blood was coming from, only to realize that he himself was covered in blood. "It's no good, Clay, there's . . . fuck! There's too much, I can't stop this and . . ."

Clay took a look quickly and agreed with Jensen's assessment, "We can't deal with that." He kept close watch as Jensen's hands flew over Alec's body and the only thing they were sure of was that there was too much damage for them to staunch the blood but that most of it seemed to be coming from shallow wounds, apart from that which was dripping from his mouth and nose for which they'd got no explanation.

"We're going to have to keep moving . . ."

Jensen tried to pick Alec up only to have the X5 make a feeble attempt to fight him off. "Alec, you've got to stop this. We're getting you out, man. Please don't make this any harder, I know it's gotta hurt, but the alternative is worse, believe me." In the end, Clay had to help confine Alec's struggle long enough for Jensen to have him back up on his shoulder and pinned in such a way that he couldn't fight back. Jensen hadn't failed to notice how every touch seemed to increase Alec's pain or how he clearly didn't know who they were, but then again his eyes were barely open and who knew whether this was some sort of delirium. Jensen was pretty sure that if they hadn't made it in then, they'd have been too late.

Jensen was back up on his feet and moving again, keeping close to the wall and shadowing Cougar as much as he could. A series of hand gestures had him pressing backwards and looking round for cover, before diving into a room on the other side of the corridor with his team mates promising to return for him as soon as the way forward was clear.

It gave him time to go over Alec's injuries again, to try and get something other than the pained responses he'd got so far combined with lack of recognition. He laid his burden down gently, shielding Alec's head as he settled him against the wall. "Alec, Alec . . ." he said softly, voice quiet in the hope they wouldn't be heard from outside.

Alec's eyelids fluttered and Jensen tried again, lifting one hand to rest against Alec's cheek. Alec moaned softly and Jensen worried at his lip. He reached for his canteen, unscrewed the lid and carefully supporting Alec's head, he tipped it up to his lips. Alec gulped greedily until Jensen took it away again.

"Alec, look at me . . ." he tried again, persisting with the attempt to get some sort of actual response that showed Alec knew what was happening. He splashed some water onto a piece of bandaging from his first aid kit and began to wipe at the cuts on Alec's face. He ended up trying to hold him still while he worked to stop Alec flinching and pulling away. "It's okay, I've got you. I'm here to help. We're going to get you out of here."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that, Jensen. I have to say it's been a long time . . ."

Jensen looked over his shoulder, not really needing to look to know. "Wade . . . yeah, definitely not long enough in my opinion. So what are you doing here?"

"Don't even bother reaching for the gun. You'll be dead before you've time to draw. So your choice, my friend. . ."

Jensen sighed, "Seriously Wade, posturing much? And you know, I think we have different definitions of friend because you definitely don't class as one of mine."

"Thankfully, in my opinion, if you're here for the Transgenic filth."

"So . . . where's Max? Isn't this his show? I mean it's been years since you've been able to even remotely think for yourself, so he's got to be around somewhere or you'd be lost."

Wade stepped closer, gun raised to aim directly at Jensen's head. "You know if you actually fire that thing now, the blood spatter is going to be a bitch to get out of your . . . rather cheap suit! You need to talk to the boss about your pay grade, Wade, or are you on performance related pay, because that could account for it?"

"Shut up, Jensen."

Jensen kept his face bland as he felt Alec's hand shift up and reach for his side arm, knowing that from where Wade stood he wouldn't be able to see the movement. Alec deserved this shot if he could make it, Jensen just needed to keep Wade distracted. "So, what's this week's weird and wacky plan for world domination then, Wade? Is it something full of fun and frivolity or have you and Max gone for the blood and gore option again, just to be boring and predictable?"

"You really do talk too much, Jensen. You've never learnt to control that mouth, have you?"

Jensen felt the gun come free of its holster and silently prayed that Alec would have the strength to shoot at least enough to disable Wade long enough for him to get a second shot off himself. "Probably not, but then again, it has its uses for distraction . . ." Jensen didn't need to look to know that the gun was pointing over his shoulder and he heard the trigger pull, the shot fire and the grunt as it hit Wade. He felt Alec slump and snatched the gun from his hand, turning around to face Wade to find him on his knees, one hand up to his chest, as blood spread round it. Wade was reaching out desperately for his dropped gun with the other hand, so Jensen kicked it away. "What have you done to him?" he demanded.

"Fuck you, Jensen, you think I'm going to tell you anything?"

"Oh, go on, you know you want to . . . bad guy monologue and all that. Happens in all the crappy movies!"

"You want to know something good? He's not going to survive, you've wasted your time and effort and if you'd any real sympathy towards him, you would put him out of his misery like the goddamned disgusting filth that he is."

"Fuck you, Wade!" Jensen pulled the trigger and with one shot finished what Alec had started. He turned his attention back to Alec, who had fallen completely to his side, breath shallow and pained, sweat beading on his forehead. "Shit, Alec , you have to hold on. There's help. We've got Dr Carr outside; he's gonna help you. You've got to hold on a bit longer, please." He took Alec's hand in his and squeezed it gently, felt the tremors that were passing through him. He activated his comms, "Clay, we need an exit now. We can't hold out any longer. Wade found us and Alec's getting worse. I've got to get him to help!"

"Cougar's on his way back to you. Make your exit and I'll catch up to you. I'm on Max's tail."

Jensen turned his attention back to Alec, trying to rouse him again, and feeling the light tremors that were coursing through his body. He contemplated re-establishing comms contact and asking Pooch to talk to the Doctor, but figured that was just risking Pooch and Dr Carr unnecessarily. His objective now just needed to be to get Alec out and to the doctor in person. He wasn't left with much choice beyond hoisting Alec back onto his shoulder and making as discreet a run for it as he could.

He was just coming out of the room when Cougar appeared at the far end of the corridor and indicated that he should head in that direction. Jensen set off at the fastest pace he could manage, aware of the fragility of the life he was carrying along with him.

Together, Jensen and Cougar made their way through the corridors hoping they were still heading for the exit after they had to make a couple of detours to avoid guards who were patrolling the area. Clearing one particular route without being seen, Cougar dropped back to make sure no one tried following them, and as he began to head to catch up with Jensen, he saw his team mate suddenly stagger to one side, barely keeping his feet. The struggle to stay on his feet was clearly getting worse and before Cougar could make it to him, he'd sunk to his knees and was trying to lie Alec down without dropping him.

"Not now, not now, Alec! Don't do this to me!" he heard Jensen murmuring as he approached. Catching up to them, Cougar realized that the problem hadn't been Jensen's as he'd staggered, but Alec's. The X5 was now in the throes of a full seizure with Jensen watching over him anxiously. Jensen looked up at Cougar as if expecting him to have a better answer.

"I'll watch the end of the corridor," Cougar said with a shrug, having nothing better to offer.

Jensen nodded and activated his comms to let Clay know they were in trouble and couldn't make their exit. It was a surprise to see Clay appear around the opposite end of the corridor to the one Cougar was guarding, hauling Max by the scruff of his collar. "Oh dear, looks like you've got a bit of a vermin problem," Max sneered despite his position.

Clay shook him hard, demanding, "What do you know about it?"

Max shrugged. "Figure you're on to a loser with that one . . . then again, maybe that's appropriate, ex-Lieutenant Colonel Clay." The title was emphasized sarcastically. "Can't trust those X5s to do anything properly."

Jensen barely contained his temper and would have moved if it weren't for Clay's warning glare. "What did you do to him?" Clay demanded again.

Jensen heard Alec moan and looked down as he finally came to rest, body ceasing its involuntary movements. With as much care as he could, Jensen rolled him over into the recovery position and waited, one hand on his arm offering what reassurance he could, the fingers of the other hand pressed in to Alec's neck in search of a pulse. Alec's breath was shallow, his pulse high and erratic, and it didn't really shed any light on what Jensen should do next to help.

"Alec?" Jensen got no response.

Clay wasn't going to stand around and watch while Alec suffered anymore, while his team who'd worked so hard to save the kid fell apart watching him like this, not while he'd got Max to provide answers. He slammed the man up against the wall fiercely, trying hard to hide his surprise when the only reaction he got was a petulant "Ow!" He did it again for good measure, then pinned Max high, toes barely reaching the floor, forearm pressed heavily across the base of his throat. Max didn't fight or struggle against it, just watched Clay with amusement in his eyes.

For all the superior expression on his face, his voice was slightly strained as he said, "Oh Clay, your foreplay needs some work."

Clay growled, "What the fuck did you do to him?"

"Who? Oh, it? X5-494, you mean. Yes, I wouldn't call him Alec any more, he won't answer to that. We spent some time reminding him of his designation. Now are you going to let me go any time soon?" Max's eyes flickered to the door as if expecting someone else to enter.

"Waiting on someone?" Clay asked, receiving a curtailed shrug by way of response.

Cougar drew his sidearm and stepped closer up to Clay, letting the gun rest against Max's temple as he said, "Wade is dead."

Max sighed, "Just can't get the help these days . . ." He let out a dramatic sigh before adding, "Let me go and I'll consider telling you what we did to it?"

"Tell us what you did to **him** and I'll contemplate making your death quick."

"Oh! You military types do have such a wry sense of humor." Max tilted his head to one side, "You really think you've won this time, Clay? Believe me, you haven't."

The sound of footsteps outside had Cougar shifting from Max's side to cover the doorway. Two armed guards with some sort of medic between them were approaching. Two shots later and the guards were dead on the floor with the medic cowering face down between them, begging not to be shot.

Quickly, Cougar checked the corridor was clear in both directions before dashing out and grabbing the medic by the scruff of the neck and hauling him into the room with him and pushing him to the floor. He pressed his gun to the man's temple and looked across at Clay and Max. The man whimpered, "Please . . . please don't shoot me."

"Oh, don't hold back on my account," Max said offhandedly. "I allow for natural wastage of resources in my calculations."

Cougar jabbed the gun against the medic's temple fiercely as he snapped, "You tell us or I shoot!"

"E-experimental drugs . . ." the medic began to stammer out. "Something that would intensify everything an X5 felt or – or –or anyone really but X5s even more . . ."

"What do you mean everything he felt?" Jensen demanded.

"The pain-pain receptors are heightened, every touch registers as pain. Even where the-the-the subject touches a wall or the floor, it will register as pain to some degree." The man was terrified, his eyes wide as he tried to give enough information for Cougar to remove the gun.

"What do we do to make it stop?" Clay asked without loosening his grip on Max. Max laughed, but gave no answer.

The medic looked anxiously at Max, flinched as Cougar forced his head to tilt further to one side with a firm reminder of the gun's presence at his temple. He gulped and began to talk again, "It – it doesn't stop as such . . . The-the first doses of the drug increase the pain exponentially, the subject felt the pain until they lost consciousness. Later a stimulant was-was added to the mixture. It-it means the subject can't lose consciousness. The sensations of pain will intensify until the body is confused, organs will first of all feel like they are failing and-and then when-when the body tries to compensate they will begin to fail, intensifying the pain further and confusing the body's reactions until it begins to cause itself more damage."

"What's the fucking point in all of that, Max? Pain for the sake of it? There are easier ways to kill someone, why go to all this bother?" Clay exerted more pressure on the pinned man.

Max grunted under the pressure, "You're too short-sighted, Colonel. It's a control mechanism. Think of Pavlov's dogs, only more useful."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

When no answer came from Max, Cougar nudged the medic into answering again, "There – there is a second drug. It works by muffling the pain receptor signals to the brain. The pain doesn't go, it just lessens enough that the subject can learn to cope. . ."

"What drugs? What's in the mix?" Jensen made no attempt to hide the desperation in his voice. The cool ruthlessness he left to Clay and Cougar, he was the one knelt here with Alec, watching a good man die needlessly because a bunch of scientists and a psychotic megalomaniac decided to play games. "Where do we get what we need? How often does he need it? And for how long?"

Max's laugh was chilling, "Oh you don't go shopping in the local drugstore for this stuff, little boy . . . You take him now and you're going to watch your 'friend' die in agony. Enjoy!"

Jensen reacted without thinking, diving across the room and snatching Max from Clay's grasp before anyone else had time to realize what he was doing. He smashed his fist into Max's face once, before slamming him back against the wall until he was breathless and then hurling him to the floor and following him down. Jensen threw a few more powerful punches before stilling for a moment, shifting position and letting his knee drop across Max's throat. "You're dying here," he said bluntly. "Only questions are how quickly and in how much pain?"

Max was silent, watching as Jensen drew his gun out and pressed it firmly against Max's stomach. Clay stood watching, concerned, but he didn't move to stop Jensen. Cougar still had a firm hold of the quivering medic, who seemed to be re-thinking his opinion of the threat they each posed. With a shaky breath, he spoke, "M-Max was carrying the two syringes earlier . . . There is a limited supply in the lab as well, but that's all. We-we were-were scheduled to make another batch later w-with m-modifications."

Clay was already patting down Max's pockets, coming up with a box which he opened to reveal two syringes. "Well…" he held the box out to the medic. The medic pointed at shaky finger at one of the syringes. "That stops the pain?"

"N-not stops, but . . ."

"Right, nothing stops it, it just dulls it and stops his organs from imploding or whatever. That one, yes?" The medic nodded hastily.

Clay lifted the syringe out and started towards Alec, dropping to his knees and trying to roll the injured man so he could see what he was doing. "Does it matter where?" The medic shook his head.

"Clay, stop!" Cougar sounded unsure of himself. Clay looked up. "That is all we have. We need to know what's in it. He will need more later."

Clay hesitated. Jensen turned angrily, "He'll be dead later if we don't give it to him. We'll get more from the lab." Cougar glared back.

"Jensen," Clay's voice was quieter as he weighed the truth in Cougar's words. "Cougar's right, we can't be sure of what's in the lab until we get there." He didn't add that they couldn't be sure of getting there at all, just turned back to the medic and asked, "What happens if I give him half of this?"

The medic shifted trying to see his watch. Cougar adjusted allowing him that movement, but making it clear that anything further would be too much. "The subject sh-should be alright for another twenty minutes; the pain will increase but not to dangerous levels. There won't be real risk for about another hour."

"He's in pain now!" Jensen retorted.

"Not dangerously so," the medic murmured. "D-did the subject have a seizure?" Clay nodded. "X5s were always prone to that. It was controlled by medications when they were at Manticore. On the outside, I would imagine that plenty of them are beginning to have mild seizures by now. The stress the subject has been under has sped up the deterioration. This reaction would be the after effect of the seizure at this point."

"You fucking bastard!" Jensen said, pressing his gun deeper into Max's stomach.

"Jensen!" Clay said again. "Not yet!" He watched warily as Jensen barely held back from pulling the trigger. "Not yet!" Clay said again, quieter. "But we will – let's just be sure we don't need him." Jensen gave a slow nod of acceptance, but the urge to finish Max was still clear.

Clay moved over to Jensen and Max, laid a hand on Jensen's shoulder before bending down to grab hold of Max and haul him up. "Get Alec," he said firmly to Jensen. "We're moving out." He looked across at Cougar. "Bring him. He could be useful as well."

It didn't make for an easy trip, trying to travel undetected through the complex with two prisoners and one severely injured colleague was never going to be a cake walk. Jensen was carrying Alec again, the X5 still too weak to move under his own steam. The medic walked in front of Cougar, leading the way to the labs, subdued and obedient, clearly desperate to please in the hope of getting out of the situation alive. Max was difficult, as was to be expected, he was loud, calling for guards, awkwardly refusing to walk and only moving when pushed by Clay.

They made it to the labs unchallenged, and the medic was quick to point out the supplies they would need, rifling through papers until he came up with an overview of the chemicals in the compound of drugs. Clay remained near the door, while Jensen checked Alec over again, giving him more water and seeing that at last Alec's eyes tracked his movements with some accuracy, although he still didn't seem to recognise who he was with. Jensen kept up a low litany of reassurances, telling him they were getting him out and he was going to be okay.

He seemed calmer, was pulling away from Jensen's ministrations less, although he flinched and groaned at some of the contact. Max's grumbling from the other side of the room renewed the fearful reaction from him as he tried to pull away only settling when Clay hauled Max bound in front of Alec, so he could see for himself that they were in charge now and Max was no longer a threat.

There was the sudden sound of approaching footsteps and Clay headed for the door, Max stumbling with him. The first two guards to appear round the corner were dealt with quickly, going down before they could get a shot off, but their companions were more cautious, prepared and shooting before sticking their heads round to check on their quarry.

Clay waited, gauging the right time to fire and managing to take out one of them with his first volley of shots. It wasn't enough though. There was no secret to where they were, the rest of the guards would be on them rapidly now. "We've got to go. Jensen, are you ready? Cougs?" A nod from Cougar and a grunted yes from Jensen as with Cougar's help, he got Alec back up on his shoulder was all the indication Clay needed.

He leant round the door and fired again, taking the offensive and driving the remaining guard backward. A lucky shot hit his opponent's gun, knocking it out of his hand and sending it skittering away across the floor. The guard didn't bother scrambling for it, instead turning and running for his own life.

Clay didn't bother with pursuit, that guard was the least of their problems. He led the way, knowing the rest of the team would follow. As they rounded each corner, he shoved Max out first, figuring that if there was anyone there and ready to shoot, it would be some kind of justice for them to get Max.

As it happened the first set of guards to catch up with them came from behind. At the first sound of gunfire, Cougar pushed Jensen and Alec forward to safety before turning to reach for the medic only to find him on the floor and bleeding out. A quick assessment and he knew the medic was beyond saving, his eyes already fluttering closed, breathing labored. Cougar took a quick breath, fired rapidly, hitting two of the pursuers before taking off after Jensen and Clay. They were his priority.

They'd made it to the last run to the exit door, Clay shouting through the comms to Pooch that they were coming out hot. As Clay opened the door, Pooch was screeching to a halt outside. Gunfire was flying wildly around the intervening space. Cougar and Clay covered as Jensen moved for the back of the van. The doors swung open and Sam Carr was helping him lay Alec inside. As soon as he was free of his burden, Jensen turned laying covering fire for Clay and Cougar as they ran, hauling Max between them.

Jensen saw as Cougar took a shot to the arm, saw him lose his balance for a moment and stumble before managing to pull himself together again, long enough to almost make it to the doors to climb in. Another furious volley of fire had Jensen stepping away from the van to reach for Cougar and pull him to safety. Clay was still shoving Max ahead of him, but as Cougar stumbled again, both Jensen and Clay pushed Max to one side in favour of reaching for Cougar and getting him to safety. They barely registered as Max was hit falling to the ground. With Cougar inside, the two of them looked back, saw Max bleeding on the ground several feet away. From what they could see he'd been hit several times. A quick look at each other and they turned away, climbing in and pulling the doors closed behind them.

"Drive!" Clay shouted and Pooch floored the gas and the van spun round, heading for the exit.


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

_"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." (William Jennings Bryan)_

Max wondered if there would ever come a time in her life when she didn't need to spend time in the sewers of Seattle. In theory she could come and go from Terminal City with relative freedom, or at least with police protection, but this was a trip that she didn't want made public. There were too many lives at risk.

The Losers, even now the name seemed strange to her, but she owed them so much. They'd done more than rescue Alec, more than stay with him, provide him with something to hang onto for long enough that he could start to recover. They'd also worked to provide a better image of the Transgenics. She didn't fully know what had happened for them to no longer be part of the military, but they'd spoken out of a mission served alongside Alec. They'd had faces and voices disguised for everyone's safety, but they'd given enough detail to the media for people to see that Alec had been an honorable and loyal soldier, serving his country as his leaders dictated, saving lives, fighting for freedom. Although Alec had been out of the media eye since this had all begun, it had kept his image there and present so that when he was well again, he'd be able to take back up his work.

Or he would be able to if he wanted. Max had to admit that Alec had changed. She couldn't be sure what he'd want when he was finally well enough to have an opinion.

Sam Carr. He'd been unbelievable in the work he'd done, the risks he'd taken and the time and effort he'd put in, first to ensuring Alec could recover and secondly in attempting to implement the changes that he, Clemente and Alec had been working on to provide medical help to the Transgenics inside Terminal City. She didn't like to think too closely of all he'd given up to work for the future of her kind. It was something they would never be able to repay. Alec had identified key personnel inside Terminal City, the Xs who'd had the most medical training. Sam Carr had worked with them to improve what they could offer to their own kind, he'd ensured they had access to legitimate drugs so that Transgenics could be treated. The increase in seizures had abated; they were screening all Transgenics now for changes and trying to predict where genetic sequences were breaking down.

It had all moved so quickly, it was unbelievable they'd come so far. Incomprehensible that Alec had achieved so much before he'd been taken that it had been little more than working out logistics to put it into action. Yes, there had been problems, rioters diverting supplies and the like, but at least there was a supply, it was something to work on, to improve and protect. Without Alec, it wouldn't have existed.

Clemente had also set up food supplies as well. It wasn't enough, but again it was something, more than they'd had. It was the start of a future, something to build on. He'd also arranged for supplies of soil and seeds; all the materials for them to start to grow their own food. Teams were working to create gardens. It was something they knew nothing about, outside everyone's experience, but Luke and his team had found the information and now volunteers were clearing spaces, turning vacant lots into productive land. Nobody knew if it would work. Clemente himself had admitted that given the state of Terminal City, the levels of toxicity in the ground might mean it would never work, but it was something to try, a start to being productive for themselves.

She checked around her as she walked down the last street to her destination. There was no sign of anyone following her, paying her any attention. She walked up the steps to the door and knocked. The door was opened quickly as if they'd known she was about to knock.

"Hey," she said, trying to be friendly, yet still feeling unsure amongst these strangers.

"Hey. Good to see you." It was Jensen and seemingly he was ready to chatter. He reminded her of Sketchy in a way, random facts spouted continually and no sense of boundaries or propriety. Yet Alec liked him, seemed relaxed by him. When she'd spoken to him, he'd talked fondly of Jensen, saying that she should pay more attention to him because he was clever, quick and that he was stimulating to listen to. He was easier to be around than some of his team mates, Max would concede that, although he seemed to get flustered around her and his attempts at flirting were actually laughable and Max had heard some really bad pick-up lines in her time.

She listened as he jumped from one topic to the next, new information that he'd found about clearing toxic waste that he thought might be useful to the Transgenics, ideas for regulating their power supplies so they could have better amenities. It was heartening to hear someone be so positive, want to help for no reason other than they could.

She crossed the room behind Jensen, who paused before Alec's door, falling suddenly silent. He bit his lip and said, "Go easy on him today. . . It's not a good day."

He knocked, then stepped aside to let her go in alone. She opened the door and saw as Cougar helped Alec back to a chair. He lowered himself carefully and she could see the tight expression of pain, although he didn't make a sound.

Three months and he could still barely move across a room on his own half the time. "Max," he said softly.

"Hey," she said softly, crossing to sit on the end of his bed and take his hand.

"Thanks Cougs," he'd said as his almost silent companion headed for the door. Cougar had given him a smile before leaving. "Sorry," he said turning his attention back to Max, although she had no idea what he was apologizing for.

"Jensen said you're not having a good day," she said.

"I'm okay." For a moment she thought he wasn't going to say anymore, but then he took a deep breath and his quiet rasp continued, "Doc and I have agreed to reduce the meds again. It – it just takes a bit of getting used to."

Max knew it was an understatement. They'd discovered that the drugs Alec had been given could be broken down by the body, but only if Alec experienced the pain. She hadn't really understood the mechanics of it all, but in essence pain broke down the compounds and allowed the body to excrete them; the difficulty was in finding the balance. Too much pain and the body would fight itself rather than the compounds killing Alec bit by bit, too little and Alec would remain in the limbo half life that the pain reduction drug allowed.

She knew he was battling through it, struggling to cope with as much as he could, constantly trying to beat the obstacles. She'd spoken with Sam Carr and he'd assured her that Alec was doing everything they could ask and more to try and heal. It gave her the patience she needed with him now, knowing that this wasn't some act.

"How's Joshua?" Alec asked. She was reminded again of the suffering he'd gone through, his voice still raspy despite the time that had passed.

"He's good, missing you. Wishing he could come and see you. He's been painting. He's done one for you, we just couldn't quite figure out a way for me to get it to you. I think maybe I'll get it to Clemente after one of the supply runs and then he could bring it to you."

"Tell him I said thanks." She saw a flicker of a grimace pass over his pale features. "I talked with Lieutenant Clemente. We had some ideas . . . skills that Transgenics could offer from inside Terminal City . . ." He paused, breathing unsteadily, eyes closed as a wave of pain crested. She waited for it to pass, relieved when his eyes finally opened again and looked at her with another apology.

"Don't, Alec, don't apologize."

"There were things I was working on . . ." he sighed. "I know it's all falling to you now, I'm sorry."

"People are helping. Luke's been great. He's also managed to find some of the more reliable X5s, the ones who aren't involved in trying to set up rival gangs. We're dividing the work between more of us, but it'll be good to have you back when you're ready. You need to get well first and that's going to take a bit more time."

He nodded slowly, then added, "Sam says another couple of months and it should be out of my system, then – then it'll just be a matter of building up strength and stamina properly. I'm sorry, Max, I'm trying to beat this."

Yeah, this was a bad day, Max thought, Jensen was right. Sam had said he had them; she'd only seen two in the last three months, but she figured she'd been lucky or he'd hidden them well. Days when between the pain and the suffering, Alec couldn't see how well he was doing. Sam had also said something about the drugs meant to take the pain away also had an effect on mood, and that each time they lowered the dose Alec would suffer a mild withdrawal.

There was a knock at the door, and as she looked up, Jensen bounded into the room with his laptop, already heading over to the chest of drawers to set it up. "And here we go, your friends and neighbors . . ." As he stepped back, Max saw Joshua and Luke on the screen.

"Hey Alec," Luke called, "It's good to see you. Don't know why we hadn't thought of this before, but Jensen called this morning and well . . . here we are."

Alec smiled, the movement slow but genuine. "You're looking well," his voice was soft and Jensen stepped in closer to the machine and adjusted the volume on the mic to pick up Alec's voice more effectively.

"Did you catch that?" Jensen asked. "Alec said you're looking well."

Luke grinned and began to chatter away about modifications that he'd made to the computers following Jensen's advice and the new supply lines enabling him to get a few basic parts, nothing too fancy, although he then smirked and added that of course he knew people and so other modifications were possible.

"Joshua, how are things? Are you okay?" Max could hear the heartfelt concern, and was again reminded how much Alec had grown as a person. Joshua told him about paintings and how the medical training program was working out with Transgenics beginning to be able to treat some of their own illnesses. Joshua reached behind him and brought a painting into view, nervously explaining that he'd painted it for Alec.

Max was surprised to feel Alec's hand tighten its grip on hers and as she looked up at Alec, she saw him biting his lip and looking almost on the verge of tears. "You okay?" she murmured. He nodded, but didn't say anything for a moment or two.

The painting showed the Space Needle against a night sky, the moon bright and low with a lone figure standing, gazing out over the city below. It was beautiful but spoke of so much loneliness that Max could feel it in the air. She'd stood alone out on the Space Needle so many times over her lifetime that when she'd been joined there by Alec or found him there ahead of her, at first it had been strange. As time passed, it became less strange and her feeling of isolation had gradually reduced. She wondered if maybe Alec hadn't reached that point yet.

Alec was smiling though, so maybe he was on the way. Luke spoke again, "I know we've not got long to talk this time, but there's someone here I think you'll be pleased to see." Alec leaned forward, eager.

A girl stepped forward, X5 at a guess. "Alec . . ." she said, softly. "It's been a long time, but . . . I wanted to say thank you – you saved me."

"X5-823!" he gasped. "Y-You're alive."

"Thanks to you. The injuries . . . before . . . I'd have died. They tell me you'll be coming back in a couple of months. Maybe we could . . . meet up then."

Max looked at him again, saw a wide genuine smile, real interest in something for the future. "Yeah," he said. "That's something we could do. Y-Your name though . . . what's your name?"

"I don't have one yet – I wanted you to pick it. Once I knew you were still alive, I wanted you to pick it."

He barely hesitated before he said, "Hope – your name should be Hope. That's what we've got now. Hope for the Future and -" he looked down nervously, "I've got something to aim for."


End file.
